By Knowlton Thomas

Shove over, smartphones. Tablets are quickly crowding the enterprise.

A new report by Infinite Research suggests that, over the next 5 years, global growth for tablets in enterprises is pegged at an astonishing compound annual rate of 48%. This will see 2011’s 13 million units shipped rise to an impressive 96 million units shipped in 2016.

In 2011, the financial services sector was the leading enterprise adopter of tablets, purchasing well over 3 million tablets, while the legal sector was second hottest. But moving forward, education and government are the two sectors expected to grow the fastest through 2016. Education sector adoption is expected to climb 55%, while government adoption is anticipated to climb 53%.

“Demand in the enterprise tablet space is being driven by the desire to improve employee (or member) productivity. Mobile applications are allowing enterprises to realize huge productivity gains,” said Mark Ritorto, President, of Infinite Research. “Additionally, enterprise members are increasingly seeking real-time access to computing & communications tools, content, and the Internet regardless of their physical location. The tablet has emerged as the perfect solution to give employees access to the computing tools necessary to succeed in today’s hyper-competitive business environment.”

Knowlton is the Associate Editor of Techvibes Media.  He has vested interests in business and financial subject matter, as well as technology and environmental affairs.

Reposted from Techvibes Media.

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