In the past few months, tablet activation has grown steadily and now represents about 25 percent of all Android and Apple device activations. Smartphones still represent the majority (75 percent), but tablet activations are growing rapidly as businesses embrace them. While most small business customers continue to prefer using the iPad, Samsung Galaxy activations have nearly doubled since October 2011.
A breakdown of tablet activation since late 2011 reveals: 25 percent of all ActiveSync device activations are tablets; Tablet activations increased from 19 percent of total ActiveSync mobile device activations in October 2011 to 26 percent in December 2011; From October 2011 to December 2011, ActiveSync smartphone activations decreased 10 percent per month, while tablet activations increased 25 percent per month; Kindle Fire tablets are beginning to make their way into the workplace with a steady stream of activations since Amazon launched the product late last year.
"Our customers are adding tablets to their accounts at an ever increasing rate," says Michael Gold, president, Intermedia. "Small and medium-sized business owners and their employees are increasingly working remotely, so taking the capabilities they have in the office -- including secure email and instant messaging, VoIP telephony and document sharing -- and combining them with mobile apps for a true on-the-go workforce is becoming more important. Cloud services from Intermedia provide the full power of a robust IT department anywhere on any internet connected device."
Intermedia manages more than 400,000 premium hosted Exchange email accounts. The company reviewed the number of ActiveSync--based devices its customers activated to sync email, contact and calendars. The company's cloud services support a full range of smartphones and tablets such as iPhone, iPad, Galaxy, Kindle, Palm and BlackBerry.