Edible Apple

The iPad hasn’t even hit the market yet, but developers are already excited about the potential Apple’s new device will bring not only to end users, but to business minded folks as well.

At last weeks Macworld conference, which by all accounts was a resounding success despite no official presence from Apple, IBM announced that it’s very excited about the iPad and is planning to release a slew of business-centric apps for the device, including Lotus Connections (for intra-company social networking) and Lotus Quickr (for sharing documents) .

Speaking at Macworld, IBM’s head of Lotus software, Alistair Rennie, said that IBM’s customers are very excited about the iPad, and that IBM intends to deliver as much of their software portfolio to the device as fast as possible. In addition, Rennie also indicated that IBM is working on applications specifically developed for the iPad, noting that the “screen real estate and the touch interface should give us the opportunity to do some very interesting things.”

Summing up the appeal of a device like the iPad for a company like IBM, Rennie stated, “Peoples’ lives don’t segment neatly between work and home. The iPad gives people what will probably be a home device, but they’re still going to want to access a full suite of business software on it. It’ll be a device our customers will own, and they’ll expect us to support it.”

via Forbes