The Wall Street Journal is keeping busy this week by throwing up ridiculous arguments about the new iPad. Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with “CIO Journal, a new premium edition launching soon,” could it?
Stop being so cynical!
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Clint Boulton (late of eWeek, where he wrote other ridiculous things, like how Apple should buy Yahoo) says “The New iPad Could Create High-Speed Headaches for CIOs”:
Apple’s new iPad may prove taxing to corporate networks and mobile data plans, an IT expert said.
An “IT expert.”
If usage of the new tablet takes off at work companies may need to spend more money on high-speed data lines, said Amtel CEO P.J. Gupta. The company sells software that sets alerts and notifications on bandwidth consumption to help clients avoid overage charges, which kick in when limits on data plans have been exceeded.
Guy who sells software that monitors bandwidth says you need to worry about bandwidth. Surprise!
But Gupta isn’t the only person the Journal quoted. Oh, no.
“As you have better quality displays, and try to present better images on those displays, the network bandwidth required increases, and the amount of data you use goes up dramatically,” says analyst Jack Gold, of J. Gold Associates. Companies need to be careful about handing out iPads to employees because the data plans that support them aren’t cheap, Gold said.
If the name Jack Gold sounds familiar, that’s probably because you read the Macalope’s column from almost exactly one year ago, where he noted Jack dismissing the iPad 2. Interesting coincidence! Jack was also not impressed by the iPhone when it was announced. Very strange! A cynical person like you might think that the man is simply getting his name mentioned by routinely coming up with anti-Apple money quotes. A cynical and correct person like you.
Well, at least Jack can’t be accused of clogging up corporate networks by serving up any of those “better images” from his site. Loads just as fast now as it did on Windows 3.1 when Jack made it!
Much of the discussion centers around LTE bandwidth caps and how you can blow through them pretty quickly by coming down with a bad case of March Madness (seriously). Which prompts Ben Brooks to wonder:
…I don’t get why this argument doesn’t end with the simple solution of allowing iPads onto corporate WiFi networks.
Well, it turns out that’s not OK, either:
Here’s a scenario that could give network managers pause: iPad owners looking to avoid downloading high-definition videos or movies over LTE to avoid steep data costs may instead do so over Wi-Fi at work.
“In a 100-person office, if just 20 percent are using the new iPad, you are talking about a tremendous amount of network traffic,” [Ed O’Connell, senior product manager for WAN optimization products at Blue Coat Systems] said…
Hang on a second. You have a 100-person office and 20 percent of them are watching March Madness in HD on their iPads? You’ve got bigger problems than network traffic, Mr. IT Manager Dude.
Look, if your employees have a business need to stream HD video, you have to suck it up and make sure your network can handle it. If they don’t have a business need, then you have to ask why they’re spending their day watching basketball in HD.
Ultimately, however, the Macalope can sum up these arguments in one word said twice: Booga booga.
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]