iPad 2 News: Best Buy to Give iPads to Salespeople?

Now that’s a perk we’d like to get! Rumor has it that Best Buy is planning to supply its sales staff with free iPads.

What better way to make sure your sales staff is qualified to demonstrate all the features of Apple’s iPad than to give one to all of them? According to Forbes, “A source with knowledge of corporate mobile device deployments” claims that one of the nation’s 10 largest retailers has plans to distribute iPads to the members of its sales staff.

The source also states that the mystery retail chain has 1,100 stores in the U.S.—Best Buy has 1,093. Best Buy also appears to be the likeliest choice because the chain has always been Apple-friendly, and one of the few chains to get the iPad the day it went on sale.

But the best clue is Best Buy’s Connected Store initiative, a pilot program launched last year that gave sales associates mobile devices including the iPad so they would be better able to educate customers as well as process sales. The program started with 27 stores last year and is expected to expand in the future.

This sounds like a winner for both Apple and Best Buy, since Apple gets to sell a few thousand iPads and also is guaranteed a sales force that will be well acquainted with their product. Best Buy gets to enhance its reputation of having a tech-savvy sales staff.

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