Are Android tablets about to get a big business boost?

The iPad is winning the tablet wars (with around 61.4% of the market), but Android could be on the verge of a massive surge.

The catalyst for that surge, it seems, is likely to be people in business and IT who have yet to embrace the world of tablets.

According to new research from IDG Connect, one-third of business people and nearly half of IT professionals who don’t already have tablets are considering going Android. According to internet research company eMarketer, “Android devices may be benefitting from a lower price point, which translates to lower replacement costs down the line”.

Android’s strong position among the IT crowd is hardly surprising when you consider nearly 42% of the ones who already own tablets went for ones running Google’s mobile OS. The launch of devices like Google’s high-powered (and relatively cheap) Nexus 7 is only going to make it an even more exciting proposition to power tablet users.

At the moment, tablet adoption rates are much higher among business professionals than IT types:

The leads are, however slight, 79% for directors and 74% for managers in the business world versus 78% and 70% for the same positions in the IT sector.

More interesting perhaps is eMarketer’s finding that both are likely to use their tablets for work at least once a week regardless of whether they owned an iPad or Android device.

Both also view tablets as devices meant to be used both for work and pleasure. eMarketer reckons this is in sharp contrast to smartphones and notebooks, which are apparently viewed as having only corporate or consumer value — not both.

That seems a little odd, especially when you consider that Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is increasingly becoming the norm, even in large companies.

The research company estimates that by the end of this year, nearly 70-million consumers in the US alone will use a tablet at least once per month. More than three-quarters of those will be iPad users.