European companies, including at least one Swiss multinational, are being forced to delay a move to paperless board meetings because of the shortage of Apple’s recently launched iPad 2 tablet device, reports the “Financial Times” (http://macte.ch/yChih).

“Company secretaries in Europe and elsewhere quickly embraced the original iPad and a specialized iPad app called Boardbooks from Diligent, a New Zealand-based software developer, as a money and time-saving alternative to sending out bulky packages of board papers to directors each month,” the article says. “Many companies, however, had been waiting for the upgraded iPad 2, which became available in Europe on March 25 in limited quantities, before making the switch.”

However, Apple restricts the purchase of the iPad 2 to two per customer because of component and product shortages. Now some companies have had to put their iPad plans on hold, says the “Financial Times.”