If you have been following my "tweets" then you will know that I was lucky enough top pick up an Apple iPad a few weeks ago while in the USA, and I have to say I love it! Some of you may already be playing with it, while others may be waiting anxiously on the postman next week to see if he will bring you your pre-ordered machine.

Much of the press coverage has centered around the fact that it is a potentially game changing personal multi-media, content serving device. This of course may be true, but some software developers with a more visionary approach see that it has major applicability in the business marketplace and are looking to develop applications for the device.

To my mind at least software vendors in the BPM space have been a little slow in understanding and embracing mobile devices and the iPad in particular. One look at the US App Store says that in other segments developers have been preparing their offerings for some time.

Now that appears to be changing, I was fortunate enough to met up with some of the team at Casewise and they told me about some of their plans. More importantly (for me!) they kindly installed their new iPad App on my machine and have let me play with it. I have to say that it looks really cool and from what I can see has the makings of something very special. As with any product, it was easy to come up with a wish list or an if-only list, but many of those things I thought about already appear to be on the roadmap.

In addition to looking at the App, the team also shared with me some of their thoughts about how the market is changing and what people will need in order to be able to respond to those changes. Radical was the word that sprang to my mind, but at the same time relief that, at last, someone seems to get where the market needs to go. I am a firm believer in modeling, but also a worrier. A worrier in that unless the modeling tool vendors really step up their game they will find it increasingly hard to compete against other genres of tools taking a relatively lightweight approach to analysis and design.

Of course, they say there is no such thing as a free lunch, and sure enough tomorrow I have to repay their kindness by showing the App to visitors at the GartnerGroup EA Conference in London—seems that if you actually have an iPad right now you are in demand! So if you are attending the event and are interested to see it, pop by their booth and make an appointment.

You can learn more about what Casewise are planning for the iPad and a whole host of other devices by reading the press release that they put out today.

Click here to read the Casewise iPad Press Release

Copyright Mark McGregor 2010
www.markmcgregor.com