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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1899
MacUser: Has Apple Missed the Boat on Tablet PC?
By Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac
March 28th 2003
Will Apple be late to the party? Will it come at all?
Is Tablet PC the next big thing? Analysts canvassed by MacUser UK are pointing at
Tablet PC's growing popularity,evidenced by 72,000 units shipped in December alone.
HP, Acer, Fujitsu and Toshiba lead the market with their entries, with HP and Acer
both shipping 17,000 units.
However, one analyst quoted by MacUser, IDC's Alan Promisel, was cautious about
predictions, arguing that the next 6-12 months will demonstrate whether there is true
business and consumer interest in the product. Attributing Tablet PC's initial success
to 'early adopters', Promisel asks whether healthcare workers or sales persons, who
need mobile computing products, will be the real litmus test for Tablet PC. If these
professions take up Tablet PC in volume, then it will be clear that a product niche
has been established.
Does Apple need to enter this market? Another analyst quoted by MacUser said
"It's almost impossible to say whether it ought to be looking at tablets right now. It
hard to see whether the interest in tablets is going to level out at a later stage, as
happened to an extent with PDAs. It is really very difficult to say, 'Oh, Apple's
missed the boat', but its fair to say that the figures indicate they may become a very
popular product,"
Analysis: A mistake? Maybe. As Tablet PC prices come down, we'd argue that their
popularity may rise. But at present they're relatively expensive, and it remains to be
seen whether corporations' and organisations' IT departments are convinced of their
utility.
That said, does Apple need an entry? A Cupertino-branded product would likely be
expensive, albeit exquisitely designed. Apple were late to portables, late to CDRW and
early to PDA and DVD-R. Even the Cube was almost another product category. Or maybe
not. Both Newton and the Cube were costly failures (the former much more so than the
latter, regardless of Newton's undoubted merits). I suspect we want Apple to
concentrate its R&D resources on OS X, software and - especially - 64-bit desktop
computing. Too many projects - redolent of the early 1990s Apple - leads to a lack of
focus on the main game which, let's face it, is Macintosh.
[Having said that, if Apple produced a Tablet PC, I think I'd want to be one of the
first in line].
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