Apple has created a series in their homepage called iPad for Business. In the series, they highlight how various corporations have adopted the iPad to really empower their employees. Currently, they are showcasing how Hyatt hotels have enhanced guest services globally with iPad.
As part of empowering their employees for business with iPad, Hyatt mentioned how they used Lotus Traveler to give employees access to their email, calendar, and contacts:
We use Lotus Traveler as the core platform to integrate with our messaging collaboration system, Lotus Notes — and users have full access to our VPN infrastructure,” says Prusnick. “Through the Exchange ActiveSync technology enabled within iPad, we’re able to get instant synchronization of mail, contacts, and calendars without any IT involvement.”
Once the employee has set up their VPN and access to email, calendar, etc, they are free to customize the iPad anyway they want to by downloading apps from the AppStore. I thought this was interesting; I would have expected perhaps IT would have more control on this. But Hyatt explains why they did this:
Once the devices are activated, users can expand the capabilities of their iPads by downloading business apps such as Keynote, Documents To Go, and Dropbox from the App Store. “With the App Store and the iOS platform, users can find and implement their own solutions without IT intervention,” says Prusnick.
Here's a video highlighting this success story:
Enjoy!