Thursday, April 28, 2011

Survey says: A Tectonic Tech Shift

By By Kent Bernhard Jr., Portfolio.com

Leave your laptop at the office. You’ll be in good company.

A new survey conducted by The Business Journals shows small- and midsize-business owners are more connected than ever to technology, significantly boosting the time spent on the Internet, their use of social networks, and their adoption of new tech tools.

The biggest change that took place in 2010 was the introduction of Apple’s iPad and the real birth of tablet computing. In less than a year, 9 percent of business owners said they were using iPads. At the same time, the number of business owners using laptops, desktops and netbooks dropped.

“Laptops are becoming an antique,” said Godfrey Phillips, vice president for research for The Business Journals, which, like Portfolio.com (and Mass High Tech), is owned by American City Business Journals. That may be a bit of hyperbole, but it’s not entirely out of line with the survey results, or what entrepreneurs say about their technology use.

(Portfolio.com reported on a survey of 2,223 bosses at companies with less than 500 employees, asking them about the recovery from the recession, technology and other topics. Read more at Portfolio.com.