Discussion on:

How the iPad is helping save Greece

as an Ad for Apple? Because that is EXACTLY what it was. If you were correct, then iPAD saves Greece wouldn't have been the title (with a quick just kidding in the first sentence of the article). It could have been a good article about how new technology, and mobile connectivity got the job done, but it wasn't. it was an ad, nothing more. Even the stock photo proves that point. Get an iPad and relax.

Steve Jobs is God! The iPad can save countries! E.T. would have gone home if he'd had an iPhone! Buy an Apple product now!

What a stupid article, pure advertising B.S.--I was going to say thinly disguised, but it's not even that. How is it different from an ad written by the Apple P.R. department?

if you're that sold out to Apple that you feel compelled to write this fairy tale nonsense I suggest naming this Tech Fantasy Check. I clicked this story expecting substance and I got some vapid tech guy writing like he's covering a teen idol for a fanzine.

"Apple" did it?

Seriously, you're paid by Apple or what?

"The iPad was just a super-friendly machine that any of the bankers involved could figure out how to use. However, the debt restructuring app and the powerful backend banking platform had a lot to do with pulling this off."

Duh.

If you are implying that the bankers in this deal do not have the technical skills to operate any computing platform other than an iPad, then we are getting closer to the true problem with managing Greece's finances.

The reality is the application and supporting backend are the real solution provider in the situation, not a freaking tablet...end of story.

This is one of the worst pieces of disingenuous hyperbole I have experienced in a long time. Fortune magazine could be partially excused because they are not reporting directly on Tech, but TechRepublic knows the truth, but ignored it for sake of page views.

How did an Apple shill get past TechRepublic security?!?!?!

Seems to me someone working on saving their country from collapse wouldn't be "enjoying the view" from some seaside balcony. Nice photo Jason, not quite appropriate for the article though.

You may get a few more clicks with headlines such as this, but you have also gotten at least one "unfollow".

I don't have enough time in my schedule for this sort of evangelism. I'm looking for some semblance of objectivity, and clearly TechRepublic is not the place to find it.

There is no business function available on an iPad that has not been available on a laptop for the last 20 years. It is not surprising that the iPads were delivered to "the leadership" and then credited with solving all problems, despite the fact that "the leadership" did very little of the actual work involved. This is common everywhere. Executive tote around their iPads and have competitions with other executives over who has the coolest home-grown apps. Then they sit down for a meeting and proceed to use their iPad to play games.

"The ipad that saved the world..."

I knew it was going to be a ridiculous story just from the headline, and it was all I expected.

Do-nothings that manipulate finances are the ones RESPONSIBLE for the economic disaster that most of the world is in. If all those people did some useful work that was of any benefit to anything other than their portfolio, there wouldn't be an economic crisis...there are too many parasites trying to find some manipulative way to profit off of the work done by the relatively few that actually work for a living, without actually having to do anything useful themselves.

I know; why don't we all just waste money on ipads and then sit there all day shuffling information around; then we can all see just how productive and useful these wastrels are, as we starve or die of exposure.

I thought I'd chime in with a quick note that my point in writing this article was to take this idea a step beyond the original Fortune article and show that the magic that made this transaction happen so quickly was NOT just about the iPad. The title of the article was meant to draw you into the story, but I was ultimately trying to make the point that it took a lot more than just an iPad to make this happen. The conclusion is that even if the whole word was using iPads (which is obviously never going to happen) there will still be plenty of room for IT professionals who are building great apps and data platforms like the ones mentioned in this article.

The story is certainly not about propping up the iPad. The title was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I was poking a stick at the idea that the iPad could save a country.

That said, the suggestion that I could have dug a little deeper and written more about the data platform behind this project is a fair criticism.

We'll work on doing a better job next time and trying to bring you useful insights that can help you in your work. That's our mission.

it's funny how many different conflicting companies you've been accused of shilling for over the years.

Edited because the forum platform won't display a tilde in the title. TR discriminates against Spanish speakers!!!

Try html (& ntilde ; = ñ )

This is not an analysis, it's An Apple ad, masquerading as editorial content. TechRepublic can and should do better.

The article is absurd and a total waste of time to read.

The iPad is an interesting device but not the salvation of the world (starting with Greece) by any means, as the title implies.

Seriously, any PC, laptop or must of the same price competing brands, could have perform and do exactly the same thing and maybe better !

I see the Apple-haters are in full voice today.

It's simply an article about how a particular technology was used to solve a much-needed restructuring problem. If the article had been about them using a different tablet for the purpose, the anti-Apple crowd would be cheering instead of blathering on about wasting money.

Get over it!

This is redicoulus about i-Pad saving Greece...
Only Greeks will save Greece from the loan sharks bankers.
Try something else to promote the i-Pad

With Innotabs(4yrs+) the Bankers would really have been able to learned how to use them quickly. That debt could be even lower.

Ah, your picture selection says it all. Too many lazy countrymen lounging on their patios enjoying early retirement. A little work may help save Greece

well i guess the comments says it all.............
for an "Editor in Chief" this must be humiliating to see.
maybe some more careful thinking BEFORE publishing could help.
only my 2c

Much worse has been said about me over the years based on things I've written about Microsoft, Google, Apple, Linux, etc. It just comes with the territory, especially on hot button topics. In this case, most of the comments are from Apple-haters (save for a handful of intelligent responses with legitimate criticisms). It's clear that most of the people in the comments just saw the headline, barely skimmed the article, and jumped into the forums. As I mentioned above, my main point in the article is that it was NOT just the iPad that helped pull off this project. The app and the backend data platform deserve credit as well and I wanted to make sure they got a hat tip.

I guess it just depends on your perspective.

I'm sure it's very true that the way the ipad was used to market the dept restructuring information was a great "gimmick" that made all the people involved feel extra special and more likely go along with the deal. So for sure good marketing idea.

But lets not pretend that a link to a website with very similar and easy to use software wouldn't have accomplished the same purpose. People at this level of decision making are quite capable of navigating software without having to resort to using finger slides! (or they pay someone to do it for them) And a link to a website would have saved the cost of all those ipads to an already dept ridden society. Stupid...

(I see now that Greece itself didn't pay for the ipads, but someone in the middle of all this dept did have to pay for them. And considering everyone who needed to make a decision on this would have obviously had numerous ways to access the information on a website, it still was an obnoxious waste of money.

It plays out as catering to some bankers/investors vanity with a cool technology gift. When at this point in the crisis they shouldn't have to be dazzled into making a sane financial decision.

Are the writer an Apple lover, or an Aple shareholder?

Seams like a marketing article... Technet used to be better than this...

That being said what was the iPads contribution to the big swindle and meltdown in the US in 2008-2009 ?.. works both ways .

It takes a certain lack of character to use the very serious crisis in Greece as as the backdrop for an iPad advertisement.

The thirteen American colonies, as you may recall, were unable to gain fair representation in the government of Great Britain. As a result of a series of complex negotiations, the colonies chose Thomas Jefferson to compose a draft of a "Declaration of Independence". Of course, this document had to be ratified and properly signed by representatives from each of the colonies. Getting roughly 56 delegates scattered among the colonies to sign off on the deal on a tight deadline was going to be a logistical nightmare. Horses and carriages, equipped with a custom-made seating for human transport, were used to assemble all of the delegates in one place. The idea was to give the participants a means to travel a long distance in relative comfort.
John Adams was quoted as saying, "We would not have a Declaration of Independence without those horses." The dimutive James Madison vehemently disagreed, putting all the credit on the carriages. It came as no surprise that John Hancock, well known for his gigantic signature, disagreed with both Adams and Madison, arguing that it was the pen that really sealed the deal.
It's too bad no one thought of iPads.

This is the worst piece of crap article I have read all month. For being the Editor in Grief of TechRepublic I expect substantially better, of course there was probably a free iPad in it for creating this garbage.

reading this article = 3 minutes of my life I will never get back. As a Greek I find this insulting,marketspeak article worrying. If $140b investment was decided upon by a simple Ipad calculation, no wonder the financial world is in such a mess and us with it.

When I saw the title I knew this was a Jason Hiner article. Wow, now I know why Greece is in such horrible finacial straights. They were waiting for iPads. Not to be argumentative Jason, but, that means it's Apples fault...right?

Jason you wanker!

"The idea was to give the participants a rich set of analytic tools and real-time, secure connections to both the global clearing systems and the back offices of banks around the world."
It can be achieved using.... a website + SSL (https)! No need to waste money on iPad!

Geez.. they have financial trouble and spend money on something that they already have!
What a great way to solve an issue!

There are certainly some advantage to splurging on expensive IPads for the people in the ministry so that they can be more productive and collaborate better. Especially, since laptops are too heavy and cannot run these customized apps (the developers must have forgotten about ancient PC's and laptops designed and built in the predawn of the IPad).

But please, showing a guy on a yacht "saving" Greece from his IPad. That is gimmicky and does no credit to Tech Republic. The real story here was the back-end system and we shall not hear about it in this article. Too bad. I would like to hear the end-to-end story that INCLUDED the IPAD, not the story that HARALDED the IPAD as the savior of a nation.

The article is like, the kingdom was lost for want of a horse shoe - or gained because of the iPad. I'd like to own one someday, although I'm not in a hurry. I like to believe and do hope Greece has a part of its debt forgiven. Greece will awaken once again to its past glory,

Wonder if the iPad can solve Global Warming too - LOL.

After all China, where the iPad is made (along with most electronics these days) is a leader in clean air... (maybe not).

- - - WARNING - - -
The rest of this is not really related to the article, and is simply to make people think.

I can solve global warming, it isn't hard, but it is harsh. Reduce the world population by 75%, problem solved. Incidentally, that is the only way we will ever solve the problem.

It is not just the use of oil, coal, and gas causing global warming. We are cutting down the rain forests (the lungs of our world) at an alarming rate. We divert the flow of water, build huge heat sinks of concrete and asphalt (cities and roads). We make all these changes and then act surprised that there is climate change.

For all of our knowledge, the truth is we are mucking with things we do not understand (not really). Our world is more interconnected than most realize, far more interconnected than we, the human race are, even with "The Cloud"). If we stopped using fossil fuels today, that would not stop global warming. Stopping fossil fuels doesn't begin to address all the issues. Ever wonder why you walk into a forest and it is cooler than standing in the middle of the city? Or have you never bothered to get in touch with good old mother nature.

This world can support a great diversity and huge populations of thousands of species. But a species can not alter the planet and expect things to stay the same. Most species find balance with nature, the human race doesn't we try to control nature, and for a period of time we will. Then we will fail and Mother Nature will claim back what we have taken.

'Water Cooler'

of a way to reply to a comment at the 'Water Cooler' hence the warning. If I were I would have done so.

...is a box named 'discussions' with a sampling of 4 current ones. Click the button below them, marked 'start a discussion'; when you're prompted thereafter to indicate your thesis' IT-area-of-interest, select "off-topic" from the choices. You will have then started a 'Water Cooler' thread. Your present *digression* from the Apple/Greece 'product-placement' blog and posts is at least as interesting and thought-provoking as the latter....
If you build it, they will come!

start a discussion. I wanted to reply to a comment in this thread. In another comment or two it will go to the water cooler anyway, if it doesn't die out first.

Still, to anyone who suggests "big die-off", I suggest people start acting on their own beliefs (walk their talk) before telling others what to do. It's like Al Gore telling everyone of gloom and doom but then living in a big mansion that costs 4-digit monthly bills to keep running (even snopes.com mentioned it as being true), flying in private jets, and everything else. Even when he was in Apple (computertakeback.org) he would not respond to their organization's request for information as to why Apple was far behind competing companies with "green movement". Note, Apple has caught up, but that has more to do with everyone screaming at them rather than them being responsible. Al Gore isn't on their board to force responsibility. He's there to make money for himself. It did take a village and Apple finally responded.

Yes, humanity needs to find a balance and I can fathom more ethical ways of doing things. Granted, to do so would probably make Al Gore mad because he would be affected and he's better than the rest of us, or certainly acts that part.)

P.S. Most people call me "Liberal" but I really am independent and base individual issues on individual merits. It's not easy but I should have gone into law school instead...

I wasn't aware that John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John needed saving?