After logging in I see My Info, where I can set my status and message, change the call-forwarding and simultaneous ring options, and change a number of other options for multiple phone numbrs, meetings, contacts and credentials.

The next screen shows Contacts, which as you’d expect are a direct mirror of those set up in the desktop-based Lync client. Clicking on one of the group expands it, allowing me to see the contacts within and their staus (and optionally their photo). Clicking on a contact (not pictured) shows the various methods of interacting with the contact (instant message, phone, e-mail, text message) and the person’s contact details. The search bar at the top allows me to search the entire company directory (and it’s extremely quick).

The next screen shows conversations in progress and the last line of conversation. The Edit button allows me to select conversations to delete. Clicking on one of the conversations opens it, allowing me to continue or select one of the many options (delete it, view the contact’s card, call the contact, invite others, send my location and send the conversation as an e-mail).

Not pictured here, but visible as options in the screenshots… I can view the day’s meetings and, if applicable, attend them from the device, and using the Phone option I can place a call. As the iPod isn’t a phone, my mobile will be called and after answering I’ll be connected to the dialled number.

Lync for iOS is available from the iTunes app store – it’s free, but of course you need to attach to a Lync server and infrastructure. Give me a call and I can sell you one.

Ian Watmore – who is now in charge of a Whitehall efficiency drive – gave a scathing assessment of the previous government’s IT record.

The article suggests that expensive IT projects made policies sound “sexy” and that certain suppliers had a vice-like grip on the world of Public Sector IT. As these articles often do, the idea of open source software is thrown in as a potential money-saver, suggesting that the UK Government relies too heavily on Microsoft products. Anyone for Symphony?

But this is my favourite part of the article…

His “personal” view, he added, was that Apple products, which he said he used at home, should also be used more in government.

Now hang on a second… the words “save cash” appear very near to the top of this article. While I might be considered to be a bit of an Apple fan-boy (while still being left unimpressed by the iPad) I wouldn’t agree that spending money with Apple wasn’t the best course of action in the middle of an economy drive. Has Mr Watmore never visited the Apple store? I know it’s hard to see the product details with every computer surrounded by tourists reading their e-mail and treating the place like a free and trendy cyber-cafe, but surely he must know that Apple products do tend to be on the pricey side.

Also, using something at home isn’t always a good reason to use the same item at work. For example, we own a Breville sandwich toaster.

When the iPad was released the number of requests went through the roof, to the point where I created a pre-formatted reply to send to excited iPad owners. By this time Traveler was coming to IBM UK, but was still nothing to do with me. The was another surge after Christmas, and a few Android owners started to ask the question.

What this shows is that there certainly is a trend for people wanting to incorporate their personal devices into their working life, just as business-provided devices sometimes incorporate some aspects of personal life. Bringing in personal devices can of course create issues for an organisation, but it allows users to satisfy their demand for the latest and greatest. I know people who have purchased a new iPhone with the release of every new model – a business would never support that level of technology adoption purely for cost reasons, but if employees want to fritter away their hard-earned disposable income on new toys, so be it.

Forbes’ article recognises that sacrifices and compromises have to be made on both sides. For IT there may be extra complexity for the support of a myriad of devices rather than ‘the company standard’ – although there is a good argument saying that users will know better how to use their own devices. The compromise for the users is that they will have to comply with their employer’s security policies, often meaning a time-out period and complex password (as I well know with Traveler on my iPod touch).

The conclusion is that, while there are pitfalls, the advantages of consumerisation can be substantial. And I’ll leave you with my favourite thought from the article:

End users don’t bristle at every restriction, just at unreasonable ones.

Recognising that end-users are now more technology-savy than they were five years, I think it would be unreasonable for organisations to ignore the demands of users and they should balance up the pros and cons.

Anyway, here’s the problem… I’m a contented soul who doesn’t want for much or expect much. I have a few gadgets… I actually have four iPods (and use them all) and an Archos 605 media player. The 605 looks a bit long-in-the-tooth – it’s three years old which is almost pre-historic – but it serves one extremely important use case for me… I can record from Sky Plus and then watch stuff wherever I find myself with my trusty 605. I’d have you all believe that I’m furiously working during long journeys on the Camberley Express, but the reality is that being sardined into a position where you can’t move your elbows is not a good work environment. So out comes the 605, and I can catch up on movies that I don’t get a chance to watch back home at Adams Towers. Generally a good thing, but occasionally I end up watching something like Will Ferrell’s Land Of The Lost, which made me wish I’d spent the time snoozing, looking out of the window or counting the hairs on my arms instead.

After three years of use, the 605′s battery life isn’t what it used to be. The original life of more than six hours has dwindled to under three hours – the battery isn’t easily replaceable without risky screwdriver surgery. Given the advancements of technology in the last three years, and the fact that once again Mrs A has no idea what to get this contented want-for-nothing soul for Christmas, I started looking at the options for a new device (remembering my primary use but considering other potential uses around the house and at work).

Firstly, the Apple iPad. Apparently they’re quite popular. I had an iPad in my possession a few times (the shared Lotus team one) – it sat on my desk at home for two weeks gathering dust and quite frankly it was in the way. When someone told me they needed it for a demo I felt no angst in parting with it, and when they said they’d get it back to me I replied that it wasn’t mine and they could hang onto it until someone else needed it. Okay, whoever said that I would have felt more of an attachment to it if it had been my own was probably right. But I can’t deny that I’m just unexcited about the iPad. And there’s two other things to consider. Does it allow me to record from Sky Plus? Not as far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong). And there will be a new iPad next year, and it’ll have one or possibly two cameras. Christmas comes at just the right time for Apple – they can clear the shelves ready for the new stock next year. I don’t want to be one of the people investing in the outgoing model.

What about Archos? Since the 605 Archos have released two versions of the Archos 5, the newer one based on Android and sold as an ‘internet tablet’. I looked at this a while back and was tempted, but then realised that the DVR station (which connects the device to the Sky Plus box and television) was different to the 605′s DVR station. Quite frankly this p!ssed me off – good for Apple for staying with the same dock connector – I’d have to buy a new one. The Archos 5 is now an outgoing model, and it’s natural replacement is the Archos 43 Internet Tablet. However, there’s a couple of problems with the 43 – one is the storage, 16 gb compared to my 605′s 30. But the bigger problem is the apparent lack of a recording function or DVR station – Archos seemed to have dropped this from their new offerings. I put this point up on an Archos discussion forum, and one of the replies stated an opinion that Archos’ direction for video would be more about live streaming. But I ask you – is live streaming any use on a train? It’s difficult enough holding a ten minute phone conversation on a train without it dropping. Why would I want to stream video when I could have it sitting on the device?

RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook… looks nice. But it won’t be a Christmas present in 2010.

Finally, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab… if I had to put anything at the top of my Christmas wish-list this would be it. It doesn’t have a record function or Sky Plus connectivity, but I’d be willing to forgive it – I could turn the 605 into a recording slave and transfer the movies to the Galaxy Tab. The default storage is 16 gb but that can be hiked up to 32 gb with an SD card. I like the size – smaller than an iPad, it would fit nicely into my bag for trips on the Camberley Express. But it’s big enough to provide a decent web browser, e-mail, calendar and social networking experience.

So, what’s the drawbacks? Firstly, mixed reviews – reports of a sluggish browsing experience, Android applications which don’t scale up, and the opinion that Android is not designed with tablets in mind (yet). Secondly, the price – the cheapest I’ve seen it is £450, which I personally think is a lot of money for what it is.

So, the big question is not “which one do I get?” – rather “do I actually need one?”. On reflection it seems that the Adams fortune won’t be depleted by £450 and the Archos 605 will have to remain my faithful travel companion for another year. Mind you, it’s my birthday in January.

Right now for me it’s a case of deja-vu (which I’ve experienced before, ho ho)… in the early days of the iPhone, and sporadically ever since, I received numerous e-mails from excited IBMers asking how they can get their iPhone connected to the Domino e-mail infrastructure (I’ve checked my job description, there’s no mention of this responsibility). Now I’m seeing the same with iPad owners. Our official mobile e-mail solution in IBM UK is the BlackBerry but Traveler is starting to gain a foothold, mainly due to the Apple devices.

The article does a good job of pointing out the major advantages of the BlackBerry solution… and solution is the right word. I’ve heard people say that Blackberries are expensive to own, but the infrastructure does provide what an enterprise needs with little or no requirements to add extras in order to make it enterprise-grade and extremely secure.

Since the article was written the iPhone 4 has been announced and I’m sure this will put more pressure on RIM and the other device providers. Consumers will lap it up, and IT departments may groan as expectant iPad / iPhone owners crave to get connected. Whether that trend gets traction in the enterprise space is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure – consumerisation and end-user-power grows stronger every year.

For something so packed with features it’s incredibly thin and light – I worried about snapping it when removing it from the box. The first issue I hit was the only negative – it’s the 8 gb model, so realistically has about 7.3 gb of storage. My music collection weighs in at 11.2 gb, so I had to de-select a number of bands and artists. Goodbye Coldplay (mind you, I should remove them anyway).

Now the positive points. As I said, it’s thin and light – incredibly so. It barely registers any weight in your hand. A gnat’s lunch weighs more. So in the last week I’ve tucked it into a suit and shirt pocket, and used it when I wouldn’t normally consider using one of the bigger devices.

Now, I keep going on about how thin and light it is, because it’s not just a music player. It’s amazing enough that they can fit 8 gb of storage, a battery, and the gubbins for a 2.2 inch (240 x 376 pixels) screen into it. But that’s not all – it has an external speaker, a radio and a video camera (complete with microphone). Okay, it’s not high definition video, but considering what it’s squeezed into I consider that an amazing feat of micro-engineering. And the quality is pretty good.

This now means I’m a three-iPod guy. My original 20 gb white 4th generation classic (complete with a monochrome LCD screen) provides music in the car, the iPod touch caters for games, e-mail, videos, Twitter and many other applications… but the nano looks set to be my primary device for music outside of the car.

The other big announcement this week is the support for IBM Lotus Notes Traveler on the iPad. This momentarily had me scratching my head, because I set up Traveler on an iPad a couple of weeks ago – it’s a great e-mail, calendar and contacts experience, and simple to get running. So what’s the announcement? It’s official support for Traveler on the iPad, and also for the Traveler Companion which manages encrypted e-mail.

In time other applications will be supported… LotusLive Meetings and SnappFiles for Quickr. Both of these work fine on an iPad today, they’re just not supported yet. And I’m sure there’ll be more iPad applications to come.

It wasn’t the first time I’d handled an iPad – my frolleague Lewis (he of the disposable income) already had one, and my first impression was that it was much lighter than I expected. The user experience was very familiar… after all, it’s just a big iPod touch, right?

One of the reasons for getting it out of the box today is that I’ll be demonstrating it at Polymorph’s Lotusphere Comes To You event tomorrow. So this morning I set up Lotus Traveler. As I don’t have an iPhone (I have a BlackBerry and Traveler on the Nokia E72) I hadn’t been through the Apple-based Travleler set-up before. Talk about easy – I connected to the IBM wi-fi network (more on that later), installed the VPN client, and then browsed to an internal web page. I clicked on the install option, entered my user-name and password, and it was done.

Obviously the iPad has a bigger screen than the iPhone, so the e-mail experience is much better. Simple but very effective. But the killer improvement is the calendar – great layout for all of the day / week / month options. I also tried LotusLive Meetings – apparently not supported on the iPad yet, but it worked and the presentation content scaled up perfectly.

The web browsing experience, with the bigger screen, is very good – but it’s applications like TweetDeck and Maps that really benefit.

Looking at the screen now, I’m glad my Archos 605 is operated with a stylus – after a day being passed around eager geeks in the office the iPad’s screen sports enough dabs and DNA to keep a forensic team busy for a year.

So, what’s the verdict? It’s a beautifully-crafted device, it’s a good size – light but big enough to ensure things like e-mail aren’t a chore as they sometimes are on smaller devices – and it’s easy to use. But I have to admit, it doesn’t fill me with a burning desire to own one personally. If I had a lot more disposable income (these days I have even less thanks to the taxman) I’d buy one tomorrow, but right now I can think of many better uses of £500. However, I can see the attraction of being out and about with a 3G iPad, so maybe in the future…

As a footnote, while in the Staines office today I connected to the IBM wireless network using the iPad, the MacBook Pro and the ThinkPad W500 with a Ubuntu Linux 10.04 install. All of these connected without complaint or coercing. But there was one operating system which refused… Windows XP (also on the W500 after I swapped hard disks). Is the wireless networking improved in Windows 7?

One other thing I noticed… on my iPod touch I access music by pressing the ‘music’ button. Pretty obvious. On the iPad, music is accessed by pressing the ‘iPod’ button. If there’s some cunning reason behind that, I don’t get it.

This iPhone application is incredibly easy to use – simply add the details of meetings you want to join (those details consist of your user name and the meeting ID). Then just click on the meeting name and you’re in. During the web conference you’ll see the shared presentation content and screen-sharing, and you’ll be able to view the participant list and take part in an instant messaging conversation. Of course I’ve already tried it this evening, the updates to the device are very quick, and it’s just a great application.

Got an iPhone? Give it a go.