In a new survey (which is still accepting responses for the rest of today) Citrix is asking its IT customers to characterize their support for iPad in their businesses. Currently, over 80% of respondents expect to purchase the iPad for their company. Even more respondents are saying they will support personal iPads for their employees.

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Survey Results

The Citrix team has shared an overview of the preliminary results.

• While 84% of organizations will support personal iPads, 50% expect their organization to purchase the device for them.
• 80% will purchase and use the iPad for business.
• The high level of adoption of the mobile device illustrates the confidence IT has that they can provide secure, safe access to company data and virtual desktops.
• Support, according to respondents, for the use of personal iPads for work will open the door for more Bring Your Own Computer programs
• The largest perceived benefits include the mobility to work remotely without interruption, greatly improving productivity for even the most remote workers.

Considerations

Realizing that the audience being surveyed is more likely to be interested in iPad due to self selection, it is still interesting the high level of support within business for the new device.

Here are a few additional thoughts about iPad’s momentum in the enteprise.

• Cost is a factor of volume. One of the big surprises of the iPad launch was the price offered by Apple for the device. For the functionality offered (especially as it gets closer to parity), it’s a revolution in IT budgeting to consider this low-cost option for a hardware solution. The big win for Apple in the enterprise is going to be made on volume. If the company is successful, as it seems it will be, in continuing to have a “low SKU” approach to the market, it will continue to gain advantage through volume alone.
• “Bring your own computer.” In a way, this phenomenon is a big change. If Apple makes it acceptable, “Bring your own phone” may be close behind. This may break the logjam we see now where enterprises hand out corporate phones, yet consumers buy their own and carry them with them in the office (and then negotiate with IT for access to apps, for example).
• Mobility as the killer enterprise app. The iPad with 3G has an unlimited data plan option that may be too good to pass up for IT managers who want to deploy mobile solutions or support the mobile workforce.
• iTunes for corporate assets. The opportunity to deliver corporate content as subscriptions, podcasts, and video libraries could be a new wrapper on corporate assets. The ability to easily catalog resources is one thing that big intranets and internal corporate networks have been challenged with in the past. Perhaps the structure of a library approach will also target enterprise employees and reduce the friction in content distribution.

It’s amazing to see the growth of momentum for iPad in business computing. This survey suggests the dynamics of iPad seem to be trending in Apple’s favor. It’s still a long way off before we see it create a large dent in enterprise laptop or desktop sales, but this movement is creating a new set of opportunities - and problems - in the enterprise.

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Although by no means a new technology, cloud computing retains the buzz as one of the latest innovative - and potentially transformative - elements of the industry. But there remains quite a bit of confusion about what exactly is meant by cloud computing, often making the question of whether or not your startup should be in the cloud difficult to answer.

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Should you move (or launch) your startup into the cloud? Proponents of cloud computing will likely tell you unequivocally “yes.” more entrenched IT forces may respond with an unequivocal “no.”

Cloud Computing: Quick Definitions

There are three main categories of cloud computing.

Software as a Service (Saas): the most common use of the cloud, SaaS is also known as “software on demand.” rather than downloading and running software locally, customers access the software via the Internet.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): As the name suggests, PaaS involves the delivery of a computer platform, with the ability to develop and deploy websites and services via the Internet.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): IaaS provides all the basic computing building blocks, but is the most complex choice. This does allow you build your platform and your services.

Five Things to Consider Before Moving to the Cloud

1. Your Needs: Just as you would have to assess your computing needs out of the cloud, moving to the cloud requires some planning. Do you need a provider that offers a lot of flexibility? What are your performance and availability expectations? Will you need additional support and services?

2. Your Budget Although you will save money by avoiding hardware investment, hosting for the cloud is not necessarily cheaper. As the cloud treats computing like a utility, you are billed as such: depending on your usage.

3. Scalability and Flexibility Although cloud computing makes scaling easier, the ability to launch new, larger servers (or shrink to smaller instances)

4. Security Security may be one of the main arguments naysayers make against the cloud, with fears that co-location in the cloud is more of a threat than co-located hardware in the server room.

5. Backup Nothing is foolproof, and simply because you’re in the cloud does not mean you should forgo backups.

Despite the promise that cloud computing holds, you shouldn’t go into the decision naively (just as, hopefully, you wouldn’t make the same decision to buy a bunch of hardware without thorough research).

Alex Iskold, founder and CEO of GetGlue and contributing writer here at rww has a good slideshare on his experiences with the cloud.

For ongoing and more in-depth cloud coverage, check out ReadWriteWeb’s cloud computing channel, ReadWriteCloud.

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Links - are they a net negative for readers online? That’s the idea being deliberately explored by a number of publishers, says writer Nicholas Carr today.

The iconoclastic author says that he has grown sympathetic to the thinking of Steve Gillmor, the almost incomprehensibly future-bound sage tech journalist who has argued for years that “links are dead.” Links within articles are a distraction and imply that the reader ought to leave what they are reading to read something else, Carr says. Placing links at the end of articles is more respectful of a person’s intentions and concentration. Do you think that’s true? I’ll skip putting links in this post, until the end, and you can let me know how it feels.

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If you’ll forgive me a block-quote, Carr explains it like this:

“Links are great conveniences, as we all know (from clicking on them compulsively day in and day out). But they’re also distractions. Sometimes, they’re big distractions - we click on a link, then another, then another, and pretty soon we’ve forgotten what we’d started out to do or to read. Other times, they’re tiny distractions, little textual gnats buzzing around your head. Even if you don’t click on a link, your eyes notice it, and your frontal cortex has to fire up a bunch of neurons to decide whether to click or not. You may not notice the little extra cognitive load placed on your brain, but it’s there and it matters. People who read hypertext comprehend and learn less, studies show, than those who read the same material in printed form. The more links in a piece of writing, the bigger the hit on comprehension.”

I think reading posts with links at the end does make my brain feel different, more relaxed.

Angels and Devils

At the same time, links in text are the standard practice for a reason, right? Inline references allow a reader to explore, to look under the covers of a train of thought, to familiarize themselves with something casually referenced, in the middle of reading. It’s good to point at things sometimes, maybe even often. (In some cases, the writing on a site can be so bad that readers just want to find a link to whatever the blogger has discovered and leave to see it for themselves. I hope we always add more value than that here.)

I often advise new writers on our staff to place links inline with the reader’s mental voice and vocal emphasis in mind. Imagine that a link is like a chorus of angels singing - the words you link are going to be underlined and appear in a different color after all - and make those angels sing at just the right time in the sentence. Maybe those are little devils, though, and not angels after all.

I like to add links out to other sources at every opportunity in order to enrich what I’m writing, to broaden the conversation, and frankly because I think linking to other blogs is a good faith way to encourage other blogs to link to us. To act as if our blog is the only place online to learn about what’s important is the height of arrogance and a real disservice to readers. Internal linking is good business practice, but I think a balance is best.

Search indexing is largely powered by links, and the words linked inline are key. That’s a tough one. Links between documents are the foundation of much of the most innovative analysis being done online, but maybe those links could just be placed well away from a body of text.

Few of those other reasons for linking require that it be done in the body of the text, though. Most major blogs that put links in the footer of a post appear to do so as a formality, just to acknowledge debt to another blog but in the least likely way that readers would click off site to visit those other sources.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe links could be added tastefully and well to the footer of posts. It might not be as good for machines, but it could be better for the human brain. Linking may be what blogging is largely about - but let’s be honest: if links to read more were always found and well-placed at the end of articles, wouldn’t you get used to it as a reader?

One of Steve Gillmor’s most compelling arguments, to me, has been that links point the reader to a specific definition of a concept. That if a reader is really interested, they can search for those terms used and gain a far broader understanding of the topic.

What do you think? Could the format of online text publishing be changed so radically and still maintain its vibrant culture of democratized publishing, rich knowledge and frictionless discovery? Could publishers put links at the end of articles and still be participating in conversations, as opposed to the awful arrogance of link-free traditional media?

Let us know what you think about this in comments below. We do still believe in commenting, right?

These are still relatively early days for web publishers, all of this should be open to debate. And it’s exciting to re-evaluate what we take for granted, isn’t it?

Now here’s some links:

Nicholas Carr’s post today - Experiments in Delinkification (ReadWriteWeb’s previous posts that cite Carr)
Steve Gillmor (ReadWriteWeb’s previous posts that cite Gillmor)

There…now how did that feel?

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There are a lot of great activities happening in the startup world (including the ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit on June 11), and we would like to help you make sure you’re on top of these opportunities.

We’re starting a calendar on ReadWriteStart that will include both events and application deadlines (for competitions and incubators, for example).

Below you will find a few of the dates that have caught our attention this week:

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SemTech Start-Up Competition

Semantic Universe is seeking to identify and recognize promising start-ups in the SemTech field. In partnership with Vator.tv Semantic Universe is hosting its 2010 SemTech Start-Up Competition. Winners will receive an overall prize package totaling over $12,000. Applications due June 6.

Women 2.0 Labs

Women 2.0 is sponsoring Women 2.0 Labs, a new 5-week program (July 6 - August 5, 2010) for engineers, developers, biz dev folks, and marketing mavens to develop high-growth technology ventures in San Francisco, CA. Applications due June 20.

Meetups Everywhere

Several entrepreneurial-related events were announced this week via the new Meetup Everywhere platform. Fred Wilson announced ongoing AVC meetups. And in conjunction with This Week in Startups, you might just find a Startup Meetup near you on June 8.

Do you have something to add? You can leave a comment or contact us with the information and we’ll include you in our new calendar of startup events and deadlines. As with the ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, we’ll include ways for you to easily import or download the information into your own calendar tools.

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Amazon’s audio book provider Audible.com is testing an app for the Android platform. With a target date of “Summer 2010″ the company will likely land its popular service on Android before it does on the iPhone. The app will allow subscribers to participate in the Audible ecosystem beyond simply listening to the audio files; a lightweight social network, accomplishment badges, analytics concerning your listening habits and text content all appear to be supported. It might seem unnecessary for the company to build a dedicated Audible app - but there’s actually some very good reasons to.

Breon Nagy gained beta tester access to the app and posted screenshots today on his site DroidDog.

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Amazon acquired Audible.com for $300 million in 2008. The service charges a monthly subscription fee, sells DRM-protected audio books and provides substantial financial support for the larger community of free podcasts on the web through advertising.

The Richness of the Files

Audible files are published using the RSuite Content Management System, which allows the company to append more than 100 different fields of metadata to each file. That much metadata offers opportunities for cross referencing various fields and other data sets, such as social activity, meaning that an Audible app could offer incredibly rich functionality. In other words, there is reason for a dedicated app to be built.

Unfortunately, Audible doesn’t support in-app purchases of audiobooks in its Blackberry app or this forthcoming Android app. The Android app is also not particularly attractive. Audible has a complicated and unfulfilling relationship with the iPhone; there is no iPhone app for the service. Wireless syncing, file sizes, proprietary formats and audio book competition appear to be complicating factors.

Any time Android wins, it’s good for competition and the larger ecosystem.

Android screenshots below are from DroidDog, where there are more posted as well.

Augmented reality (AR) developers Mobilizy, makers of the Wikitude World Browser, are close to releasing their latest creation, Wikitude Drive, an app that combines AR technology with turn-by-turn driving directions. The app works by taking live video of the road captured by a smartphone mounted on the dashboard or windshield and super imposing the direction data onto it. The company announced late last week that beta testing with 2,000 volunteers had been concluded, signaling that the company may be close to publicly launching the app on the Android marketplace.

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As the company points out, taking your eyes off the road to look at a 3D map on your GPS device can be dangerous. With Wikitude Drive’s directions (provided by Navteq) placed onto a live video of the road, the dangers of glancing at an illustrated map are reduced. To get an idea of how the app works, check out the video below released by Mobilizy last week showing some road tests.

As you can see, the app quite skillfully places the directions on the live video of the road, but the size of the path and arrow still leaves a large blind area for drivers. You can also see the directions jitter a bit when the car is in a tunnel, a problem with the GPS signal weakening in the tunnel. What this also tells us is that the app is not yet able to take advantage of the live video feed as much as it would like to.

Due to platform limitations, the app cannot digest the live video and map the directions more accurately to the road. While it does a fair job of guessing where the road is, the ability to process the road and run it through image recognition technology would make it much more accurate. Mobilizy says they are working on an iPhone version of the app as well - a platform that will soon support live video processing with an upcoming OS update.

With Wikitude Drive, users can quickly switch to a traditional elevated 3D map view by touching the screen, but which perspective will drivers use? Depending on the price of the app, Android users may download the app for the basic directions to save some money. The other common concern with these apps is what happens when a phone call comes in while providing directions? Can users easily answer and call and continue to receive directions? Or will they be interrupted and forced to later relaunch the application?

Either way, Wikitude Drive seems like a great use of augmented reality and a logical next step for the platform. Mobilizy says it plans to integrate the Wikitude World Browser, and it’s database full of points-of-interest, into Wikitude Drive in the future. Combine this type of direction capability with GM’s idea for an augmented reality windshield and a fascinating future of cars with heads-up-displays could be just around the corner.

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Location-based applications are all the rage right now, but anyone who uses them knows that current GPS technology only allows for a certain amount of accuracy. If you pull up Foursquare, Gowalla or any other social check-in app while in a dense business area, chances are the place you’re looking for is not at the top of the list. This is because current GPS chips and satellites are only accurate to roughly 20 feet at best, but this number could shrink significantly with the recent launch of the first of several new GPS satellites.

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Late last Thursday, the U.S. Air Force launched the GPS IIF SV-1 satellite from Cape Canaveral (see video below), the first in a series of new satellites designed to overhaul the existing network that has been providing GPS data for nearly two decades. Boeing has been contracted to build 12 GPS Block IIF satellites, part of an $8 billion government project to replace the 24 existing GPS satellites over the next ten years.

According to Boeing, the Block IIF series of satellites include a host of enhanced features and functionality that will improve GPS signal strength, quality and accuracy. Boeing says the new satellites will have “two times greater predicted signal accuracy” than the previous ones, as well as improved signals for aviation and military use. Additionally, this new fleet of satellites should improve the overall accuracy of GPS signals from the rough estimates of 20 feet to a tighter radius of between two and three feet.

For mobile location-based applications, these improvements could be monumental. Not only would location apps as we know them today be greatly improved, but increased power and accuracy could create entirely new breeds of applications. By boosting the signal, the possibility of having GPS function in large indoor facilities, like malls or convention centers, is significantly increased. Mobile apps could be developed to help stranded cave divers, rock climbers or even victims of landslides and earthquakes be located by rescue personnel. In fact, NASA already has plans to continually improve on the GPS satellites for the purpose of creating a better search and rescue system.

Mobile augmented reality, a field that relies heavily on GPS data, would also see large improvements with increased accuracy. With the current limited accuracy of GPS, mobile AR apps can only give users a rough estimate of where locations are relative to their position; these new satellites could make it much easier for an app like Layar or Wikitude to point users directly to the nearest ATM or subway entrance. Combine this with enhanced visual recognition technology and AR could quickly evolve to recognize our surroundings and help us navigate the world.

But what about privacy? With increased accuracy, users’ homes could be identified by their location data, not just what area of town they are in. Location-based applications may need to implement privacy controls that limit the amount of data shared with other users. I wouldn’t mind if an app used as much data as it needed to find me and provide relevant information, but once that is complete, I should have the option of what level of location to share with other users.

The Block IIF satellites are the first step in creating a highly accurate GPS network for consumers. The second step is creating smaller, more capable GPS chips for mobile devices, and the third is updating databases of location data to reflect more accurate results. It’s not good enough anymore to just know the address of an establishment, especially if it is in a mall or shopping center. In the near future, our GPS devices won’t simply drop us off at the block a business is on, they will walk us right through the front door.

Image from Boeing.

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The iPad has passed $1 billion in sales, according to simple multiplication of the company’s 2 million announced-sales of the product after a mere two months of availability.

Earlier this month, Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe predicted that the iPad would become the fastest consumer product in history to hit the $1 billion mark. While that’s a tough call to make definitively, it is undeniable that the iPad has surpassed mere hype and made at least a commercial splash. Some analysts believe it is changing the nature of personal computing, too. What do you think?

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Here are some of the most interesting opinions I’ve come across lately.

“The iPad is a new kind of PC. It ushers in a new era of Curated Computing — a mode of computing in which choice is constrained to deliver more relevant, less complex experiences. Curated Computing is necessary to empower alternative form factors, such as touchscreen tablets, wearable and ambient devices, game consoles, and connected TVs. The iPad’s Curated Computing experience makes the tablet form factor viable for the first time since it was introduced commercially more than two decades ago.”

- Forrester’s Sarah Rotman Epps, Apple’s iPad is a New Kind of PC. (Brings to mind Chris Messina’s Death of the URL.)

“In my initial review, I focused on capabilities. And tablets are stuck between the power and utility of the notebook and the size and features of a smartphone. But they also create a middle place in terms of usability. And that is what I missed in my first day with the iPad. It feels less like a computer than any computing device I’ve owned. It’s easy on me in a way that the other devices are not. So I’m now convinced that tablets will have an important place in our homes and our lives.”

- Tech investor Fred Wilson, I’ve Changed My Mind About the iPad. Wilson has also said that he prefers reading content in mobile Safari over content-centric apps. Take that, curated web.

Wilson’s appreciation of the iPad’s usability contradicts with usability expert Jakob Nielsen’s assessment :

“iPad apps are inconsistent and have low feature discoverability, with frequent user errors due to accidental gestures. An overly strong print metaphor and weird interaction styles cause further usability problems.”

Personally, I love mine. I wish there were more apps, but I really enjoy using Facebook, YouTube, Twitterific and a number of other apps on it. It feels casual, efficient, enjoyable. It helps me get my laundry folded and my dishes done. I like it, a lot.

My wife says it doesn’t feel crazy, novel and magical anymore - now it feels indispensable and integrated into our lives. “It’s like finding a lover,” she says. “At first everything they do is exciting, but over time a good lover becomes more of a real person. Some of the initial fascination is gone, but it becomes a super important part of your life. And like a good lover, in time it becomes difficult to imagine going to bed without it each night.” I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that, but I appreciate her letting me quote her saying it in this post. So far at least, I do not feel jealous of the iPad.

What’s your take on the iPad?

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What if Chris Dixon and John Borthwick were sitting at the same table as you, ready to have a real conversation about what’s next for the real-time Web? Would you like to sit across from Marshall Kirkpatrick and Richard MacManus and have a straight-shooting conversation about real-time online media? If so, then the ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit is for you. And thanks to its unconference format, the day will be like participating in a think tank - you and a group of tech luminaries collaborating on the future of the Web.

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That’s the nature of ReadWriteWeb summits - straight talking, collegial settings where individuals who are striving to move an industry forward, sit down and create the future. Everyone learns. Everyone advances. You leave feeling energized and full of “next’.

The ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit - will take place on June 11 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. Register here.

If you’re a student and would like to participate, please email us at students@readwriteweb.com.

What’s an Unconference?

It’s simple: With the help of a professional facilitator, Kaliya Hamlin, you and everyone attending the conference create an agenda in real-time on the day of the event. This ensures that what’s covered is important, timely, and exactly what you want to talk about. To see the power of the unconference format in action, check out this video of session pitching at the recent ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit:

Watch live video from ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 on Justin.tv

The rest of the day is spent debating and discussing the issues. Notetakers record the sessions throughout, and we record video when possible.

We can assure you that by the end of the day you’ll have made new contacts, participated in some ground-breaking discussions, and (if you were brave enough) worked side-by-side with people you admire.

We hope to see you there.

Today we’re giving away five free tickets to our readers who have the most interesting thoughts about the real-time Web. Let us know your comments, concerns, predictions and premonitions in the comments below!

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One of the key aspects of the emerging Internet of Things - where real-world objects are connected to the Internet - is the massive amount of new data on the Web that will result. As more and more “things” in the world are connected to the Internet, it follows that more data will be uploaded to and downloaded from the cloud. And this is in addition to the burgeoning amount of user-generated content - which has increased 15-fold over the past few years, according to a presentation that Google VP Marissa Mayer made last August at Xerox PARC. Mayer said during her presentation that this "data explosion is bigger than Moore’s law."

During my visit to Hewlett Packard Labs earlier this month, I spoke to Parthasarathy Ranganathan - a
Distinguished Technologist at HP Labs - about this large influx of data onto the Web.

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Like Mayer, Ranganathan compared the online data growth rate to Moore’s Law. He told me that it’s rising significantly faster than Moore’s Law. HP CEO Mark Hurd put it this way in June 2009: "more data will be created in the next four years than in the history of the planet."

281 Exabytes of Online Data in 2009

In her presentation at PARC, intriguingly entitled “The Physics of Data,” Mayer noted that there have been three big changes to Internet data in recent times:

1. Speed (real-time data);
2. Scale ("unprecedented processing power");
3. Sensors ("new kinds of data").

Mayer went on to say that there were 5 exabytes of data online in 2002, which had risen to 281 exabytes in 2009. That’s a growth rate of 56 times over seven years. Partly, she said, this has been the result of people uploading more data. Mayer said that the average person uploaded 15 times more data in 2009 than they did just three years ago.

A Sensor Revolution

Mayer talked about "a sensor revolution," including data from mobile phones. She remarked that "today’s phones are almost like people," in that they have senses such as eyes (a camera), ears (a microphone) and skin (a touch screen).

HP’s Ranganathan used the term "ubiquitous nanosensors," that can have multiple dimensions per sensor:

• Vibration
• Tilt
• Rotation
• Navigation
• Sound
• Air flow
• Light
• Temperature
• Biological
• Chemical
• Humidity
• Pressure
• Location

Ranganathan noted that there will soon be millions of sensors working in real time, with data sampled every second. He said there’ll be lots of different applications for this data, including retail, defense, traffic, seismic, oil, wildlife, weather and climate modeling.

Exascale Web

HP sees its role as providing the computing platform required to deal with this massive influx of data and the complexity of processing it in real-time. Google clearly sees itself as a provider of exascale Web services.

We don’t know yet which computing or Internet companies will be most successful over the next 5-10 years, but one thing is for sure. They’ll have to know how to process and make sense of massive quantities of data flowing through the Web - and do it in real-time.

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