• San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, February 2, 2012 9:56 AM

Without much effort on its part, Apple is making rapid headway in selling to corporations. After years of being the also-ran to Microsoft in the workplace, Apple has seen its iPad become a standard business tool. According to an IDG Connect survey, 51% of managers with iPads say they always use the device at work, and another 40% sometimes do. Seventy-nine percent of the respondents use the iPad for business when outside the office.

Even as Amazon's Kindle Fire and other tablets play catch-up in the consumer market, the iPad faces little competition among corporations such as financial services and pharmaceutical firms. Apple's iPhone, meanwhile, is the top-selling smartphone, forcing businesses to accommodate workers who use it. That has helped set the stage for Apple's Mac computer to make its own in-roads in the corporate world.

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