iPad 2 available on Amazon for $299.99

The current low-end Xbox 360 with Kinect, a solid game console, can be yours for $299.99 from Amazon. I think Apple should price iPad 2 at this same price. Yes, I think Apple should declare war on Microsoft's one (semi-) success of the 21st century.

iOS, which runs iPad, has proven itself to be a top-notch gaming platform. No, you won't get the kind of Black Ops experience on an iPad or iPhone like you can on an Xbox, but you can get something more, something different. There's more games made for iOS than any gaming platform in history. Plus, as Apple gets the wannabe social Game Center working, as they sell another million more Apple TVs, or more, and another 15 - 50 million iPads, there's no end of when and where and on what screen and against whom, at any time at any place you can play one of 100,000 games. Play against the machine, your friends, or strangers. Throw in FaceTime on iPad 2 and you further enhance the experience. Fact is, iPad is a gaming machine. Priced right, it can become the best selling gaming machine available.

But wait. A gaming machine? I've told you before that iPad is (secretly) a business device, designed for what I term 'communal computing':

First, we must think of the computer (PC). It may not be very personal, but it is made for the individual. Same goes for the laptop. Same for a netbook. Same for a smartphone, in fact. The iPad, however, is *communal*. Actually, more than that. The iPad is at once both personal and communal. This has never before existed in computing and it is the combination of price and form factor that makes it so. The iPad is another Apple trebuchet that will destroy barriers, gates, walls and re-make the current state of computing. Beginning in the workplace.

We do not need another personal computing device. We need a collaborative computing device. Work is changing. Technology is changing. And only the iPad offers communal computing. At work, we collaborate, more and more. The iPad is designed for this. It turns on instantly, it's highly intuitive, fully loaded, no training required and, as it's not personal per se, encourages being passed around. As the price continues to fall, iPads can be placed in every meeting room, every open space of every company. You can place them at the receptionist's desk, in waiting areas. At the doctor's office, you can fill in your information then hand it off to the next patient. At the restaurant you can use one to review the menu and stay occupied as you wait for a table, then pass it to the group that just walked in the door. The possibilities are limited only by computing, the web, work, interactivity and collaboration. In other words, awesome possibilities.

If this is so, if iPad is designed as a new-era collaborative business computing device, then why focus on Xbox and gaming?

On a quarterly numbers basis, the answer's easy: because the opportunity is there. Multi-billions are spent on gaming and gamers and grandmothers alike have availed themselves to Apple's iOS to play all manner of games. This becomes even more so as we transition from stand-alone gaming devices to multi-function always-on smartphones. On these mobile devices we play, we play against others, we play against locations, we play against strangers. Maybe not as immersive, true, but constant and everywhere. Plus, as we build avatars, gain points, complete tasks, find others to compete against, the mobile device supports a richer experience when we finally go home and fire up the 'immersive gaming box'.

Only, I think the potential for 'gaming' is much greater. Much, much more. And I'm leaving it up to Steve Jobs to make it happen. Because, right now, no one seems better positioned or capable.

Steve Jobs wants to make great hardware. But, he also wants to make great hardware that destroys the existing order of things. He still views himself as the pirate, as the one who takes down the old world order. I'm beginning to wonder if iPad, not iPhone, offers Jobs his best shot at this. Especially as I consider iPad 2. A lower-priced, higher-powered, more functional iPad -- the iPad 2 -- can accelerate Apple's efforts at upending...

• gaming
• what we watch on television
• how we interact with the (multiple) screens in our home
• how (and why) we create and interact with our surroundings
• the way we collaborate at work
• how we enable our customers to interact with us

This is all being done, now. But it's in the very early stages. Apple is upending gaming, pushing Wintel PCs off-balance, destroying individual companies, like Nokia, sucking up the profits in the smartphone industry, rocking carriers off their quasi-monopolistic perch, forcing cable MSOs to re-think their strategies, demanding makers of content to optimize for iOS, creating thousands of new app development houses...and making a lot of people rich.

But that's not enough. That doesn't change the 'order' of things. It merely shifts them in Apple's favor. The iPad, however, may shift the very order of things. It does this through its unique combination of business computer + gaming platform + collaborative computing device. Jobs is building a device that *fundamentally* alters work. And by this, I do not mean, swap PCs for iPads. I do not mean enable us to work 24/7 from any location, for example. I mean *fundamentally* alter work itself. That's gotta keep Apple and Steve Jobs focused on their 'pirate' mission, for sure.

How, exactly? Truth is, right now I'm not completely sure. This is a concept I'm working with so I will admit upfront that it may not yet be fully realized. Bear with me. One of the business models I track, because it exists only in a smartphone world, with its anyplace, anytime, anyone, any group connectivity, I label "boring is death". We are on the cusp of a 'boring is death' world; where we will never allow ourselves to be bored. Smartphones (and tablets) make this so. There's always a website, a game, a book, a text, a conversation to be had, no matter the time or place. More and more, the combination of smartphones, real-time, any-place are fostering location-based service (LBS) such as Foursquare, for example. You check in to a place, say the neighborhood library (you do have one, don't you) and let others know where you are, maybe even 'compete' for points or status or rewards of some kind. Already, we are competing for better deals, better prices.

Similarly, the combination of smartphone plus mobile web plus LBS plus virtual services meet real-time social databases are enabling "augmented reality". This augmented reality (AR) lets us experience a real physical space in a deeper way, by overlaying personalized information on the view from our smartphone. When I walk the streets of Paris perhaps my smartphone overlays historical information, or gossip, or real estate data (or, a virtual point and shoot game where I take downt annoying French people, which we Americans are taught not to like). This can be fully personalized, or designed for a group; and it's always changing. It's a sort of game experience within our physical surroundings.

This combination of LBS, augmented reality and smartphones are bringing us to a world where boring is death. Only, I think even that I may be underestimating. It's not simply that this new world can create 'gaming' or competitions or interactions with other people and/or machines and/or surroundings during potential downtime. No, I suspect we will demand such services (and their progeny) to invade *all* our time and places. At home, at work. Wherever we take our smartphones, which is everywhere, we can play, interact and prevent ourselves from boredom. Perhaps something mundane like software QA can be turned into a highly competitive virtual reality game. Or, we determine if our company or our primary competitor 'wins' a client based on a series of proposals that become more and more game-like. The possibilities are endless. We will not only refuse to accept boredom while standing inside a crowded Metro car. We will refuse it in our work, our daily chores. This will ultimately remake business and employment and learning; everything we do.

'Boring is death' is a concept that will bleed into everything. For younger people, this will become normal. And if it is normal, it will fully invade the workplace. They will make this happen. Coding will be designed as a game. QA will be designed as a game. That's for starters. The simple stuff. Next, we compete in virtual simulations against another competitor to get the big contract. Then, we compete for that government contract, or for best-customer pricing. Everything becomes a game, a reality show. The possibilities are endless.

Resulting in a world of business unlike anything we have now, or have ever had.

And the iPad, invading the workspace, invading homes, re-working gaming could be the wedge that makes this happen. It's the only device on the horizon that potentially changes how business is done and how people work. The iPad is at once a gaming console, a business device, a personal computer, a collaborative tool; always-on, always with us (soon), that requires zero training, zero experience. Remaking work.

This is the real opportunity for Apple -- and potentially an even greater legacy for Steve Jobs; changing how work is done. Hell, changing how everything is done.

To get this revolution started, I suggest Apple accept my mundane advice and lower the price point on the iPad. This will help it go after and destroy the standalone game console all while the iPad invades more businesses. Of course, to do this, will mean Apple has to cut into its margins. Margin protection brings out the worst in Jobs -- always pulling down his grandiose schemes. But with Apple stock sky-high, more money in the bank than he ever dreamed possible, now's the time to strike.

Many people are not exactly sure what the purpose of an iPad even is. Media consumption? Blogging? A big smartphone? A gaming platform? A heavy Kindle?  A secondary laptop? Yes. It is all these things, though this is a very limiting view of the device. With a lower price and some minor tweaks, the purpose of the iPad, which is already pulling in profits for Apple, has yet to be realized. While multi-billion dollar companies are hurrying to build tablets to compete with iPad, they continue to focus on designing a *personal* device optimized for explicit tasks.

To his credit, Jobs , while building devices designed with a set of explicit functions in mind, always seeds them with a much larger purpose; one that cuts across multiple un-related markets and industries and devices and uses and demographics. And the iPad could be his crowning achievement. And, yes, it has the potential to change how the world works. I would definitely pay $299.99 for that.