Study: 85 percent of companies that plan to buy a tablet, plan to buy an iPad within 90 days

Jordan Kahn

We know that demand for the new iPad met expectations with Apple telling USAToday demand is “off the charts.” Apple also confirmed that the initial pre-order supplies were purchased with shipping times for the device slipping to “2-3 weeks.” Now, a new ChangeWave Research study of “1,604 business IT buyers” gives some insight into just how in-demand the new device will be in the enterprise.

From the study, we learn that approximately 22 percent of companies plan to buy tablets for their employees during Q2 2012. ChangeWave noted, among those companies, demand for iPad increased to the “highest level of corporate iPad demand ever” with 84 percent planning to make the new iPad their tablet of choice. The increase represents a 7-point jump from ChangeWave’s last study due to the new iPad launch. The study also aimed to find which carrier the companies plan to use for data services with their tablets. Not surprisingly, AT&T and Verizon were neck and neck:

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Apple releases Configurator app for Mac

Seth Weintraub

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Apple today released a new free Mac App called Configurator which allows you to administer many iOS devices at a time like in a school or business (or my house) setting.  At first blush it appears to be much simpler than the Windows/Mac configuration utility.

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Aerohive’s Bonjour Gateway enables long distance iPad and iPhone printing support across enterprise

E. Betters

Mobile device manager Aerohive introduced Enterprise Bonjour Gateway today for enabling Apple’s Bonjour protocol to work across multiple network segments in a corporate setting.

Bonjour allows networking hardware to automatically configure (zero-configuration), while Bonjour Gateway (PDF) essentially adds support for iPad and iPhone users to employ components like AirPrint for wireless printing wherever an AirPrint-capable printer is accessible. The feature intends to aid the growing trend of users who bring their iOS devices into work.

More information is available below.

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The MacBook Air Samsung SSD is about to get twice as fast

Seth Weintraub

I had a chance to meet with Samsung Storage solutions at CES 2012 this week and got the low down on its new OEM SSDs that Apple tends to buy in large numbers.  Samsung and Toshiba are the OEMs that provide the SSDs in MacBook Airs.  Samsung’s 470 OEM SSD product is noticeably faster than the Toshiba model that Apple also puts in otherwise identical MacBook Airs.  We have talked about the speed difference before and how Air-buyers often will pay a premium for the faster Samsung drives.

Well, the speed difference is about to get even more noticeable. Samsung told me that it sold out of the 470 series OEM SSDs late last year and the company only makes a much faster variety: the 830 series.

How fast is the 830 Series controller/chips?  I had a chance to speed test the popular 2.5-inch 830 model late last year when it debuted.  Typical speeds were over 400MB/s write and 500MB/s reads (below, left).  That is almost twice as fast as the current MacBook Air SSD from Samsung (below, right), which itself is significantly faster than Toshiba’s SSD.

Samsung stopped short of announcing it is shipping the 830s to Apple, but the company confirmed it ran out of 470s a while ago and all of its SSD customers were receiving the updated 830 series. Samsung also confirmed that Apple is still a customer.

Today I ventured to the Las Vegas Apple Store to check the speeds of the MacBook Airs.  I checked a new 128GB MacBook Air right out of the box which had the same “APPLE SSD SM128C” listed in System Profiler as my year-old Air.  I checked the speed and it is indeed the old disk (same as above, right), which means the new Samsung SSDs haven not hit stores —at least here anyway.

Theoretically, a few things could happen at this point…

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OWC puts together Mac Mini Stack Max: USB 3.0, 4TB 3.5 inch drive, eSATA and more

Seth Weintraub

We love this add-on to the Mac Mini that turns it into more of a pro-device (and a cube!).  The business up front is a DVD-R drive (not sure about BluRay) and an SDXC card reader that complements the one on the back of the mini. On the rear, you get a high power USB source for quick-charging an iPad as well as a few USB 3.0 ports that require separate drivers.  Also on the back is an eSATA port for fast external peripheral support as well as two Firewire 800 ports. Inside, there is room for up to a 4TB 3.5 inch hard drive which you can order with the Mini Stack Max or you can bring your own.

This is interesting because it is moving the Mini more toward a pro-like setup.

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OWC has not put a price on the Mac Mini Stack Max but expects them to be available in March. Read more

More ThunderBolt at CES 2012: Western Digital shows impressive speeds, Hitachi shows pro setups and Seagate shows off sleds

Seth Weintraub

I had some time to demonstrate some of the upcoming Thunderbolt accessories from external drive makers at CES earlier today. We briefly discussed a few others from OCZ, LaCie, Belkin and Elgato earlier in the week. First up is the Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo:

These are going to compare nicely to the Promise RAID setup that has similar speeds, but it does not have a price or release date yet.  The vibe seemed to be like Q2 with perhaps an announcement at Macworld.

Next up is the Hitachi G-Drive series of Thunderbolt Drives, and these drives are 8TBs…

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