From Ducati To Double Espressos: How Tablets Are Transforming Business

This post is part of the "Future of Business" series, which examines how cutting-edge technologies are rapidly reshaping our world, from how businesses run to how we live. "The Future of Business" is sponsored by SAP.

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The tablet is the Zelig of modern computing: There's no telling where it can turn up or how it will blend into some facet of our life and work.

And it's transforming business everywhere it appears.

Take the iPad: Originally conceived of as a media-consumption and entertainment device—an overgrown iPod—it's become an indispensable work tool, serving as everything from cash register to Rolodex.

Android tablets, too, are making inroads—especially in different form factors, like phone-tablet hybrids.

Square CFO Sarah Friar knows something about the chameleon-like nature of tablets. The payments company's credit-card reader and software turn these devices into modern day cash registers. She's taken to calling them: "general-compute devices."

That's exactly right, in that tablets start out as generalists, and are easily reconfigured from one purpose to the next. But it's in the specifics that things get really interesting.