A recent report at InformationWeekdetails the story of Level 3 Communications, which recently equipped its entire sales workforce with iPads loaded with apps that provide access to pricing information; presentation creation; and display, corporate email, customer records and inventory checks. The iPad proved more than up to the task of supplementing and mostly replacing laptops.

InformationWeek goes into much more detail about what the iPads meant for Level 3, but the advantages for salespeople on the ground can be boiled down to three main categories:

1. Instant on. The iPad’s ability to instantly wake from sleep and pick up right where a user left off exceed that of even the fastest SSD-equipped notebooks, and it only sips power in tiny amounts in order to provide that functionality. That, combined with its superior portability, makes it the perfect tool for doing “quick checks between meetings, at an airport, or in a taxi,” InformationWeek says. With a laptop, five minutes in a taxi might not seem like enough time to make powering up worth your while; with the iPad, that’s a nonissue.

2. Connectivity. The iPad (at least the 3G models) provides always-on cellular network access, as long as you are within coverage range. Some laptops can offer that, but the process is still often more complicated than just tapping the wake button and being ready to surf, email or chat. But it’s not just cellular radios that make the iPad great for sales; built-in GPS positioning means salespeople can get locally relevant information, like clients or potential clients in the immediate area, in only a few short steps via task-specific software.

3. On-device demo. A laptop is an ineffective replacement for a catalog, and presenting a slide show on one is awkward. Using an iPad as a presentation tool, on the other hand, is natural. The tablet is easily passed around, can be read like a magazine, and can also output to external displays with less hassle and fewer steps than a laptop. And apps like OnLive Desktop and Iongrid make it even easier for iPads to sub in for notebooks capable of running desktop presentation tools.

Level 3 isn’t the only company to realize the value of iPads in the hands of a sales force. Sears, of all companies, announced in October it would begin rolling out iPads in 450 stores that same month, and TUAW noted at the time that Lowes and Pacific Sun were also expanding iOS deployments.

InformationWeek thinks 2012 will be a breakout year in terms of actual iPad deployments, just as 2011 saw a huge uptick in pilot programs. If that indeed comes to pass, we should see Apple easily beat the 40.7 million iPads it sold in 2011.

“The cloud boom is well underway in the business world!”

“Enterprises are keeping their heads in the clouds!”

Any one of these lines could have easily opened this piece…and they would all be lies.  Certainly, the business world at large is interested in the benefits of the cloud, but enterprises have been very slow to adopt a key element of cloud computing: platform-as-a-service or PaaS.

So what?  For the business world to fully embrace the cloud, they have to overcome a huge hurdle –getting their “core”/legacy/custom-developed applications to the cloud.  This is where PaaS comes into play.  PaaS provides the necessary cloud capabilities that allow enterprises to fully embrace custom application development through lowered infrastructure costs, less strain on existing resources and the ability to push IT to innovate rather than maintain.

The primary problem, however, is that very few PaaS providers are actually building PaaS solutions with enterprises in mind. The enterprise wants PaaS…but no one seems to want to bring PaaS to the enterprise.

The vast majority of current PaaS offerings cater to independent software vendors (ISVs) rather than actual enterprise IT shops.  At first glance, the differences between ISVs and enterprise IT seem to be non-existent, as both are typically focused on developing software to deal with business problems.  But at a more micro-level, the differences are vast, placing a very different set of requirements on cloud computing and PaaS in particular.

Change.  Change Never…Changes?

First, consider application and process change, a key cost-driver in any application development scenario.  In the enterprise world, change depends on a variety of factors, both internal and external, from management decisions about go-to-market approaches to mergers and acquisitions to changes in government standards and regulation.  This type of change is chaotic, to say the least, and is rarely planned for.  Not to mention that these changes are always business critical, meaning that IT departments need to have the changes implemented yesterday.

From an ISV perspective, change is completely different – the change is usually controlled by product management and happens in a uniform and structured environment.  Typically, the software products developed by ISVs exist to solve commodity-style business problems, like CRM or ERP.  These business problems tend to be stable, as the implemented business processes have become industry standard, thus change is much more manageable.

As such, ISVs (and their PaaS solutions) do not need to deal with rapid, chaotic change, but rather planned product releases.  The enterprise does not have this luxury, so ISV-style PaaS simply becomes too slow for the business when it comes to change.

The Management Gap

When it comes to managing the lifecycle of a particular application, ISVs take center stage – and they should, since their applications are how they actually make money. Product managers watch over individual product lines (or even specific applications), carefully selecting features to implement and managing version control with an iron fist.

The enterprise side couldn’t be more different – typically, applications are not the business’ revenue driver, but rather an enabler of whatever the primary product is, whether plastics or real estate.  Despite the importance of these applications, which typically address a business-specific challenge or opportunity, enterprises tend to treat them with “part-time” product managers, usually made up of a mix of roles including business analysts, developers and stakeholders.

This means that the approach to managing the application lifecycle is night-and-day in both organizations:

-       ISVs, through their full-time product managers, have near total control over specific application portfolios and keep a close watch on what makes it into an application and what features are cut.  This controlled plan is the design behind most PaaS systems, making them ideal for the ISV environment.

-       On the other hand, enterprises are often working to build application functionality for innovative business processes where the business is in ‘invent’ mode, requiring a more trial-and-error (aka “throw it at the wall and see what sticks”) approach.  To compound this challenge, the professionals tasked with managing the enterprise’s application requirements are not full time product managers.  This puts a special need on the PaaS tooling to provide excellent collaboration capabilities that make it easy to capture feedback to support changing requirements.

Even The Apps Are Against Us

Nothing is ever easy in the enterprise, so it’s no surprise that even applications themselves tend to work against the ability of businesses to properly deploy PaaS.  In a typical enterprise, the majority of applications are “composite applications,” meaning that they are an extension of another application, system or (worse) older, legacy applications that are complex and inflexible.  This makes integrating applications a nightmare, and can prove to be a huge roadblock for PaaS and the cloud in general.

ISVs have no such problems, however, as their business is based around providing a complete system of record, requiring no supporting integrations to deliver a working solution.  For PaaS solutions, the ISV does not worry about integration capabilities, while this is a top need for the enterprise.

The Enterprise PaaS Wish List

So what can PaaS vendors do to actually enter (and stay in) the enterprise marketplace?  There are a few simple wishes that every enterprise IT team has for their PaaS technology:

-       Rapid, Simplified Development: Given the fluid nature of corporate IT teams, enterprise PaaS should provide a model-driven development approach to simplify application design and delivery and dramatically improve an enterprise IT team’s ability to understand and maintain an application.

-       Change Ready:  The only constant around enterprise applications are that they need to change, quickly and without incident.  Thus, enterprise PaaS offerings need to understand that unannounced and unplanned change is the norm, not a rarity, and provide collaboration mechanisms to capture change requests easily.  Thus built in change management and auto deploy capabilities that reduce the risk of change are paramount for enterprise PaaS.

-       Built-In Scalability:  For the enterprise, many apps are born on the “edge” of the business where innovation often takes place.  In many cases these tactical applications become mission critical.  A good enterprise PaaS solution will allow the department to begin the development process and, when the time comes to scale the app, the PaaS solution will do the work automatically versus needing IT to rewrite the application.  This means an enterprise PaaS solution must fit both the department and corporate IT team’s needs.

-       Streamlined DevOps:  Enterprise PaaS must eliminate complexity and automate the process of moving applications from development to production and all the steps in between.  Additionally, it must provide built-in mechanisms to roll back changes and monitor application performance in order to easily identify issues.

-       Universal Application Support:  Delivering a wide range of solutions to support innovative business needs is key for the enterprise.  The ideal PaaS solution will make it easy to deliver application functionality across a variety of device form factors including desktops, tablets and smart phones.  The key requirement is to simplify the design process and make it easy to deliver highly usable interfaces for each form factor while reusing existing business logic and data.

-       Simplified Integration:

Integration is a key need for enterprise PaaS, specifically to address the composite nature of most custom applications.  In many cases this means that the PaaS solution needs to run on–premise in a private cloud set-up.  In addition to supporting a private cloud, the PaaS solution must make integration a key element of the solution where it is easy to define, secure and monitor the performance of integrations.

So can PaaS make the enterprise stop and listen?  Absolutely – the benefits are there and businesses, especially in today’s economy, are pining for faster delivery and lowered IT costs.  But enterprises and ISVs are not the same organizations…so why should they be forced to use the same cloud?

According to a study released Thursday by eMarketer, online advertising is expected to generate $39.5 billion in sales this year — a 23.3% increase from 2011 — compared to a spend of $33.8 billion on print.

That’s impressive growth, especially since 2011 also witnessed a 23% jump in online ad spending, according to eMarketer’s calculations. Online ad revenues should continue to grow over the next half-decade, albeit at a more modest rate, as shown in the chart below. Total online ad investment is projected to hit $62 billion by that time.

 

 

 

Thanks to Lauren Indvik of Mashable for this data and article.

Multitasking may help us check off more things on our to-do lists. But it also makes us more prone to making mistakes, more likely to miss important information and cues, and less likely to retain information in working memory, which impairs problem solving and creativity.

Over the past decade, advances in neuroimaging have been revealing more and more about how the brain works. Studies of adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using the latest neuroimaging and cognitive testing [PDF] are showing us how the brain focuses, what impairs focus — and how easily the brain is distracted. This research comes at a time when attention deficits have spread far beyond those with ADHD to the rest of us working in an always-on world. The good news is that the brain can learn to ignore distractions, making you more focused, creative, and productive.

Here are three ways you can start to improve your focus.

Tame your frenzy.

Frenzy is an emotional state, a feeling of being a little (or a lot) out of control. It is often underpinned by anxiety, sadness, anger, and related emotions. Emotions are processed by the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped brain structure. It responds powerfully to negative emotions, which are regarded as signals of threat. Functional brain imaging has shown that activation of the amygdala by negative emotions interferes with the brain’s ability to solve problems or do other cognitive work. Positive emotions and thoughts do the opposite — they improve the brain’s executive function, and so help open the door to creative and strategic thinking.

What can you do? Try to improve your balance of positive and negative emotions over the course of a day. Barbara Fredrickson, a noted psychology researcher at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, recommends a 3:1 balance of positive and negative emotions, based upon mathematical modeling of ideal team dynamics by her collaborator Marcial Losada, and confirmed by research on individual flourishing and successful marriages. (Calculate your “positivity ratio” atwww.positivityratio.com). You can tame negative emotional frenzy by exercising, meditating, and sleeping well. It also helps to notice your negative emotional patterns. Perhaps a coworker often annoys you with some minor habit or quirk, which triggers a downward spiral. Appreciate that such automatic responses may be overdone, take a few breaths, and let go of the irritation.

What can your team do? Start meetings on positive topics and some humor. The positive emotions this generates can improve everyone’s brain function, leading to better teamwork and problem solving.

Apply the brakes.

Your brain continuously scans your internal and external environment, even when you are focused on a particular task. Distractions are always lurking: wayward thoughts, emotions, sounds, or interruptions. Fortunately, the brain is designed to instantly stop a random thought, an unnecessary action, and even an instinctive emotion from derailing you and getting you off track.

What can you do? To prevent distractions from hijacking your focus, use the ABC method as your brain’s brake pedal. Become Aware of your options: you can stop what you are doing and address the distraction, or you can let it go. Breathe deeply and consider your options. Then Choosethoughtfully: Stop? or Go?

What can your team do? Try setting up one-hour distraction-free meetings. Everyone is expected to contribute and offer thoughtful and creative input, and no distractions (like laptops, tablets, cell phones, and other gadgets) are allowed.

Shift Sets.

While it’s great to be focused, sometimes you need to turn your attention to a new problem. Set-shifting refers to shifting all of your focus to a new task, and not leaving any behind on the last one. Sometimes it’s helpful to do this in order to give the brain a break and allow it to take on a new task.

What can you do? Before you turn your attention to a new task, shift your focus from your mind to your body. Go for a walk, climb stairs, do some deep breathing or stretches. Even if you aren’t aware of it, when you are doing this your brain continues working on your past tasks. Sometimes new ideas emerge during such physical breaks.

What can your team do? Schedule a five-minute break for every hour of meeting time, and encourage everyone to do something physical rather than run out to check email. By restoring the brain’s executive function, such breaks can lead to more and better ideas when you reconvene.

Organizing your mind, and your team members’ minds, will yield a solid payoff in the year ahead. Adding “high-quality focus” is a great place to start. Try holding a no-multitasking meeting and see what happens when everyone in the room gives their undivided attention. Have you ever tried this in your organization? If not, do you think it would fly?

This article highlights nine small businesses of various sizes and industries that have transformed their online presence with innovative social media marketing practices.

You’re guaranteed to find inspiration for your social media marketing efforts here.

These tactics will work for just about any business—from solopreneur to multi-employee manufacturer. So let’s dive in!

#1: JarvieDigital Photography

Scott Jarvie takes world-class wedding and nature photographs and he has trained a number of photographers using his unique methods. He’s even had a photographic method named after him: The Jarvie Window.

The Jarvie Window has generated interest in Scott’s photography around the world.

As a photographer, you would expect Scott to have exceptional photos on his site, and he does. But he uses them on both Facebook and Google+ to create personal engagement and promote his products and services. In fact, Scott hasdeveloped different engagement strategies for each platform.

On Scott’s personal Google+ profile, he is highly engaged through sharing resources and commenting.

On his Google+ business page, Scott features his photo services.

While Scott is a premium photographer and trainer, he demonstrates his expertise and generosity to photographers worldwide through sharing resources on his website and through his social sites.

Scott not only shares valuable resources, he also promotes the work of his students—a great way to show social love.

#2: The Prospecting Expert: A Consultant

Steve Kloyda founded The Prospecting Expert, a business-to-business consulting firm that helps salespeople with their prospecting skills. He has developed a powerful social presence through the use of video and podcasts.

Steve provides valuable content through a regular podcast show and video channel. Notice also the use of social sharing buttons.

One thing Steve understands is branding. Through the use of his photo and logo, he has created a consistent look and feel across all of his social channels.

Steve’s brand is instantly recognizable. Notice also the friendly picture—important when your face is your brand.

One ninja trick executed by Steve is the creation of an iPhone app for distributing his content. While it could cost from hundreds to several thousands of dollars, the marketing benefit of having your content delivered straight to your users’ mobile devices could be invaluable.

Let your customers directly access your content on their mobile devices with a customized app.

#3: Coconut Bliss: An Ice Cream Company

Coconut Bliss is an organic dessert company based in Eugene, Oregon. Their products have become widely popular due to their social media practices.

Coconut Bliss conveys a fun, social brand through rotating photos on their home page.

Technorati discovered in their 2011 State of the Blogosphere report that bloggers use photos more than any other type of media (80% use photos, around 50% use videos and many fewer for all other formats). Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of fun and friendly pictures to show customers eating their dessert products.

Coconut Bliss integrates photos across social platforms.

Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of promotions to engage their fans. In this year’s Veggie Awards, they were able to partner with VegNews to offer a unique prize to Coconut Bliss fans while also getting partnership in a much larger promotion to all readers of VegNews. Two smart strategies: contests and partnerships.

#4: JamaicansMusic: An Online Music Channel

Casey Hibbard highlighted JamaicansMusic in a Social Media Examiner post, but they have some unique social practices worth emulating. After all, they have achieved astronomical growth through smart social media practices—1.5 million new fans in 4 months!

When visiting the JamaicansMusic website, one instantly gets the feeling that this is a social company. In fact, there are three different places on their home page to connect socially.

Make it easy to connect socially, especially if there are multiple offers on your home page.

By providing contests, free music, games and other valuable resources,JamaicansMusic has given their Facebook fans lots of reasons to revisit their page—and tell their friends about it.

When playing this creative songwriting game, JamaicansMusic offers fans more ways to connect socially.

#5: SEOMoz: A Software Company

SEOMoz is a search engine optimization and social monitoring service provider. One thing that distinguishes their site is the use of gaming mechanics to spur participation from their writers and site members. Each post, comment and Like generates points that help distinguish the experts from the crowd.

Gaming mechanics encourage site members to actively participate if they want to rank well against their peers.

Not only does SEOMoz invite social engagement on the first visit, they also use social proof to earn the trust of visitors. See the recognizable brands in the image below.

If you’ve done business with name-recognizable companies, ask if you can tell others. It provides significant social proof for your business.

#6: Ana White: Carpenter

Ana White is a carpenter billing herself as a “homemaker” who has a website to empower women to do carpentry projects. With over 51,000 Facebook fans, Ana has created a massive following among women (and quite a few men) who love her easy-to-follow blueprints for do-it-yourself furniture projects.

Ana’s Facebook page has over 51,000 fans. Her fans post tips and projects here frequently.

Since late 2009, Ana has been publishing free how-to guides for furniture. She also asks her fans to post pictures of their success stories—the very thing people love to do (talk about themselves). As a result, she has a very popular site where most of the posting comes from fans. Very smart!

“A good video can make all the difference.” 

~Brian May

IF A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS, you could say that a video is priceless.

We live in a time when a single video can tell your story, tip your brand — or change our world. Cases in point: JK’s Wedding Entrance Dance, Will it Blend?— and We Are All Khaled Saeed.

Over two billion videos are downloaded every day on Youtube. That is roughly equivalent to the programming that the three major television networks put out. In one year. And, in my estimation: user-generated videos are just getting started. As these tools (such as smartphones) become more pervasive — and they are — an increasing number of people will produce video content.

Predicting the success of a video is next to impossible. Who would have ever guessed that “Charlie Bit My Finger” would have garnered more views than five Superbowl commercials? However, there are some guiding principles to help you produce winning videos, whether they’re for your personal brand, your business — or your cause. Here they are:

1. Keep it Short & Sweet.

People, particularly in social media, have shorter attention spans. Studies show that attrition rate after 30 seconds is roughly 82% (unless the video is compelling or celebrity-driven).

2. Start Strong.

A Jupiter research study found that people decide — in the first two seconds — whether or not they will watch the remainder of a video. It’s important to capture their attention in those two seconds, not necessarily with stagecraft. Strive to be compelling and given them a reason to keep watching. Have you ever watched thoroughbred horses break out of the gates? It’s so jaw-dropping that we cannot help but keep watching! Break out of the gates in your videos!

3. Make One Point (and No More Than Three).

Nielsen reports that humans can only process, and retain, three simple messages in a short span of time. Do not overload the viewer with granular facts and minutiae. You needn’t make them an expert. Just pique their interest. Pick 1-3 concepts you want to convey and use anecdote, humor and color to bring texture your videos.

4. Entertain, Inspire, Inform—or, Ideally, Do All Three.

Frame messages in the interest of the viewer. The fact is that people care less about your product, brand or cause than they do about how it improves their lives. Stay viewer-centric and seek to leave them informed, inspired, entertained—or all three. Humor is powerful, engaging and effective—if you can pull it off.

This relates to the point above, but it warrants its own coverage, because it’s essential to understand in this “word of mouth economy”: in a single click, People can share your content farther and faster than ever before. Here’s a litmus test: Produce content you’d be compelled to share with your family.

People have sensitive antennae in social media. These channels were created as a very refuge away from corporate marketing. people know contrived when they see it, and it can do more harm than good. Speak with a “human voice.” Mean what you say. If you’re interviewing someone, ask them to be honest (even if it means they aren’t uniformly positive; it will be more credible.). If you try to message people, you will never reach a wide audience. If you win people’s hearts, you can reach the world.

Ask yourself: What do you want the viewer to do? You need to move people to action, otherwise you may achieve non-financial outcomes    (video    views)    in    lieu    of    financial    outcomes (conversions/revenue). tell viewers what you want them to do. And, if it’s possible to edit the video with a graphical outro, do so.

A single video that resonates in the hearts of enough people can achieve breathtaking results for you, your business or your cause. You have never been more empowered to have a voice, build a business or change the world.

The question is: will you?

Citing “multiple sources,” All Things D reports that the social networking giant will offer shares to the general public during the third week of May. That means Facebook has to file its documents with the SEC within a month since a review by the agency usually takes three to four months, the site reports.

However, the report also warns that the timing could fluctuate. “This IPO planning could all change in a New York minute to another month.” Indeed, after the market’s gyrations over the summer of 2011, IPO dates for Groupon and Zynga became moving targets as the companies sought favorable conditions.

Facebook reps could not be reached for comment on the report.

The timing of Facebook’s IPO has been a source of speculation for the past few months since the $100 billion offering will likely be one of the 10 biggest IPOs of all time and the largest of any tech company. In November,The Wall Street Journal, which, like All Things D, is owned by Dow Jones & Co., reported that Facebook would go public sometime between April and June.

Yelp, which is planning its own $100 million IPO sometime this year, will undoubtedly be closely watching the timing around a purported Facebook IPO with vigor.

Thanks to Mashable’s Todd Wasserman for providing this.

Amy works with people like Dana White of the UFC, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson of acting/WWE fame and brands like Nike and Fox Sports (and now Joel Stein). Her specialty is working with organizations or individuals and making them look good online. Since the online world is in perpetual flux, I wanted to get Amy’s take on the social media landscape for 2012.

Here were a few key trends Amy said we should look out for in 2012:

1. Social TV Integration

Many shows have already begun to integrate social TV, either through polling or integrating social elements within the show. See my example of how both the UFC and WWE are integrating social media into their programming. Social media played a pivotal role in the last presidential election, and it will likely be more integrated into political broadcasts.

As each news channel fights hard to keep their viewers engaged, networks like CNN and Fox have made significant strides to engage their audience, although some would argue that this social media integration has come at the expense of hard-hitting journalism and analysis.

2. TV Is Going Online in a Big Way

2012 will be the first time that the Super Bowl will be streamed live to the world. Since the Super Bowl is generally viewed as the mother of all advertising spectacles, it will add a new dynamic into the digital component to advertising and social media integration.

3. Facebook Credits Take Center stage

Facebook in 2012 has the potential to project its power and truly take Facebook credits into a viable currency. Amy puts it quite well when she says “they’re building an online destination we’ll never need to leave, and my guess is they’re only about 8% of the way through their product roadmap.”

4. Big Business Has Woken Up

The way corporate entities approach social media is shifting. Many companies realize that setting up Twitter, YouTube and Facebook accounts is not going to cut it as their social media strategy. Brands will need to seriously shift their perspective by treating social channels more like communication channels and less like an advertising channels in order to make a difference. From my perspective this transition has already occurred, judging by the extent to which brands’ Twitter accounts are now used as channels for CRM and customer support, managing pissed off or happy customers in near realtime.

5. ROI Is Still Huge

ROI will remain a key metric to any social media strategy. The concept of engagement is now becoming more and more an excepted metric. CEO adoption of social media is improving, and more CEOs are recognizing the benefits of humanizing their brand by taking to Twitter.

Customer service, research and image branding could all be considered social media intangibles, yet all three are obviously important in business. Social channels impact every single aspect of business from human relations to finance, sales, operations and legal. It’s important for everyone to understand how social media affects their role and responsibilities. Opposite of television, social media is a dialogue vs. a monologue and if a brand is able to collect opinions real-time in high volume via social channels like Facebook polls, they can save a great deal of money on formal research studies.

There have been a lot of discussions about social media fatigue and whether brands refuse to play for that reason. With over a billion people on social media it’s irresponsible for any brand not to have some sort of presence. 2012 will be the year for brands to go beyond cookie cutter campaigns and really determine how it not only adds value to their company, but how it adds value for their customers. 2012 will be crucial for companies and social media. For those who don’t see a direct correlation between social media and sales consider:

“Social media is an ideal tool for moving people up the fan ladder, from being a casual fan of a brand to a loyalist, because the communication channels allow people to build stronger emotional connections with brands.”

So in 2012, the question is, how will your brand use effective strategy to move people up the fan ladder from interested to foaming at the mouth brand zealots?

The iPad 3 is expected to be one of Apple’s big revenue drivers for the upcoming year. While the iPad 3 is critical, most analysts expect the iPhone 5, which is also expected to be 4G friendly, to drive sales more.Volume manufacturing is expected to ramp up in February, according to Bloomberg.If Bloomberg’s report is on target, Apple is likely to see a slowdown in iPad 2 sales, which may already be taking a hit from Amazon’s Kindle Fire. There has also been speculation that Apple will keep the iPad 2 around and play multiple price points.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster handicapped Apple’s iPad plans in a recent research note. He said:

“Our model currently assumes iPad 3 will simply replace iPad 2; however, if Apple expands the iPad lineup to both higher and lower price points, the new iPads could support growth well above our current estimates. Our current CY13 revenue growth estimate for the iPad is 11%, with the bull case at 30%.”

In a research note, Wedbush Securities analyst Craig Irwin said that the iPad 3 is likely to be a boon for battery suppliers. The iPad 3 is likely to have much more battery material in it. Irwin said suppliers like Simplo, Dynapack, and Polymore are likely to benefit.