iPads, like so much technology now-a-days, seem to be a solution without a problem. We have three people here at the office who rushed right out to get their iPads, and everyday, they lug them to work, and yet I have never (not even once) seen the iPads come out of the napsack/briefcase to be used! In fact, its become a bit of a joke around the office with one employee who, though a great guy and very talented, always has to have the latest technology, and yet is either spending months "setting it up" and never really "using" it, or returning it to the vendor finding they "didn't really need it".

As much as I commend the contest - thats a great gesture - is an iPad really anything more than a laptop without the "top" as has been pointed out by a few technologists?

Having gotten rid of a lot of needless technology in my life a few years ago, I see an iPad as just another gizmo to weigh down my baggage and give me another device to worry about. I don't have responsibility to monitor servers, but I am not sure an iPad makes that task any easier - let alone, couldn't you do the same from a laptop? Smart phone?

Having more that three decades in technology, what worries me today is that we used to build solutions to real problems - thats what drove technology. Now it seems most solutions are built, and then, as today's editorial glaringly shows - we go seeking a problem to apply them to.

To me, that seems completely bass-ackwards.