CDW, a veteran provider of technology solutions for business, government, education and healthcare, and one with a collection of about 250,000 small, medium- and large-sized customers, recently decided to find out what exactly users are doing with their tablets within their business settings.

The company conducted a survey across a panel of 610 business users across four industries – healthcare (152), higher education (153), state and local governments (151), and enterprise users (154).

The answers may or may not actually prove to be surprising. We’ll note before digging a bit deeper that CDW did ask users for their astrological signs, but we are most definitely going to pass on exploring that end of it.

The first thing worth noting is what functionality users want on their tablets. The graphic below demonstrates what the ideal tablet is going to sport for the survey panelists, ordered by most requested to least requested feature.

The list above more or less defines an iPad. But if we consider the request for productivity software and a keyboard, it may very well be a Microsoft Surface RT tablet that users would like to get hands on (they probably just don’t know it).

When panelists were asked about the kind of quality time they spend with their tablets and whether or not tablets make them more productive at work, the answers were interesting. No, people don’t seem to use their tablets as long as we may have thought they did, but without question when people do use their tablets they unequivocally provide non-trivial increases in productivity. The graphic below shows this.

As shown, the typical time users are interacting with their tablets at work is about 2.1 hours a day – but those 2.1 hours translate into significant productivity increases of 1.1 hours a day. So users spend two hours a day on their tablets and get about three hours worth of work done – not bad. Respondents say they spend, overall, about 26 percent of their total computer time with their laptops, primarily doing things such as e-mail and note taking – not at all surprising.

A whopping 84 percent claim they are now better multi-taskers because of their tablet use.

That last is interesting but we suspect that it’s their perception of their multi-tasking capabilities that have been altered rather than their actual abilities here.

Finally, in the graphic below we get to the more general usage questions. First, we can see how the rest of their hardware usage pans out. Desktops, at 68 percent, remain by and large the still dominant computing tool, although laptops follow close behind at 62 percent. Only 2 percent of users use their tablets exclusively – a number we suspect will change and increase non-trivially by this time next year.

Note that the majority of users at 59 percent own their tablets, and a majority of them at 56 percent have had their tablets a year or less. Not surprisingly, the top response for why users like their tablets falls to having information access on the go.

Collaboration makes a worthy appearance, though it’s interesting to note that social media capabilities only rank in 6th place in terms of most desired work applications.

It’s all about mobility. Is anyone surprised?

If you really must know about your sign and what it has to say about you and your tablet choices, you can find the details over at CDW.