Six months later, only 170 iPads have been deployed in the city.

"It was kind of surprising," Doll says. "We were really expecting more folks to jump on the bandwagon. I thought there was this pent-up demand and expected 400 or 500 right off the bat."

So is the iPad over-hyped as an enterprise tool?

Many obstacles stand in the way of the iPad's march to the enterprise. Apple and the media have played up the iPad's promise, perhaps setting up unrealistic expectations. The iPad itself is a poor replacement for laptops for most knowledge workers. It's costly for companies, especially money-strapped cities such as Minneapolis, to embrace new computers that don't replace existing ones.

Yet despite the initially low iPad adoption rate, Minneapolis isn't looking back. The bet on consumer technology will eventually pay off, Doll says.