Even the most consumer tablet can find a home in the workplace

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Kindle Fire on a pile of books.

Credit: Kodomut via Flickr

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During last year's holiday shopping season, Amazon's newly introduced Kindle Fire gave Apple's iPad its first real taste of competition. This year, the tablet field includes a much larger range of tablets across both the business and consumer markets including the new Kindle Fire HD, Nook HD, Google's Nexus tablets, Samsung's Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note, Microsoft's Surface and other Windows RT devices, and Apple's fourth generation iPad and iPad mini.

That range of devices could prove challenging to IT departments after the holidays have come and gone as employees bring their new devices into the office. The iPad and full featured Android tablets won't be major headache since they can be provisioned and managed easily enough with existing mobile management tools.

Windows RT devices may be a headache since Microsoft's traditional PC authentication and management system - Active Directory domains and group policies - aren't supported by the Surface and other Windows RT tablets. Microsoft is, however, offering enterprise management solutions for Windows RT devices. There may be a learning and adoption curve, but in the long run Windows RT tablets shouldn't pose a massive or unsolvable problem.

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Devices like the Nook HD and Kindle Fire HD, however, are another story. Some basic integration with enterprise systems like Microsoft Exchange is available for these devices, but the options are pretty limited.

This raises a big question when it comes to these truly consumer-focused devices - are there even viable business use cases for them?

The answer is yes, but within a narrow set of limitations.

Both the Nook and Kindle devices rely heavily on app and content stores from their respective manufacturers. That means that adding business apps is problematic at best and impossible at worst. Some key business apps may be available, but not all of them. Also as companies begin to reposition their internal line of business applications and workflows as native mobile apps, the Nook and Kindle devices aren't likely to gain support for those apps. That strikes out more advanced use case scenarios, but being limited isn't the same thing as being completely useless.

The latest versions of the Kindle and Nook tablets do offer basic integration with Exchange, which delivers access to corporate email and related services. They both come with decent built-in web browsers. As such, they can handle some light office tasks and access web-based internal resources.

As AirWatch CEO John Marshall recently pointed out to me, that basic functionality can go a long way.

Email remains one of the most common uses of technology in the workplace and many companies maintain web-based corporate intranets that could be accessed from these devices. That can provide access to a range of web-based internal tools as well as access to a corporate inbox. That light office use may be more than enough for some employees and executives.