It has been a year since Microsoft launched Windows XP
Tablet PC Edition, but despite a quiet 12 months few are willing to
dismiss the platform just yet.
Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates
predicted at Comdex 2001 that, "a lot of people in the audience
will be taking notes with those Tablet PCs [during the 2002
event]".
Not only was the launch of Tablet PC delayed, it looks unlikely
for that prediction will come true this year either.
Microsoft, perhaps predictably, feels "great" about the first
year of the Tablet PC, even though the company might fall a bit
short of its sales targets, said Andrew Dixon, marketing director
for Tablet PC at Microsoft.
The goal was to sell 500,000 Tablet PCs by the end of the year
and the company is on track to sell between 400,000 and 500,000
units.
About half of all Tablet PC sales are in the US, the other half
is split between Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, he said.
Users are typically enterprises that have large numbers of
employees in specific categories such as salespeople and insurance
claims adjusters, said Dixon.
"Our goal is to become the next mainstream notebook PC," he
said, adding that Microsoft still believes that four years from now
the majority of all portable PCs will be Tablet PCs.
Microsoft anticipates a growth for Tablet PC sales. Key factors
in kickstarting sales will be new devices and more software
becoming available.
Barring any wildly optimistic predictions, things have gone as
well as most observers might have guessed, said Stephen Baker,
director of industry analysis at NPD Techworld. He sees it taking
some time for the devices to expand from vertical markets to
horizontal ones.
Baker would not divulge his company's estimates for unit
shipments but said that sales through commercial markets such as
retailers and distributors reached about 2% of the overall notebook
market in the year since the device was launched.
If first-year success of the platform can be measured by the
number of device makers producing Tablet PC-based computers,
however, then progress can be seen.
Nine companies had devices ready for the launch on 7 November
last year, and today there are around 40 companies producing Tablet
PCs, according to Microsoft.
The PC maker, Gateway, already sells a machine designed by
Motion Computing, but is planning to begin selling its own machine
in November, said Mike Stinson, vice-president and general manager
of mobile products for Gateway.
"We're pleased with the level of interest," he said. "But it's a
little disappointing that because this is a new form factor, it's
taking people longer to test and profile it, and they're being more
cautious about rolling it out."
"Our exisitng run rate is around 8,000 to 10,000 [units] per
month," said Campbell Kan, the chief officer of Acer's notebook
products division.
Acer will not be able to make money on Tablet PC until volumes
hit between 20,000 and 30,000 units per month for each of its three
models, he said.
He cited problems, including high prices - Tablet PC devices are
often at a premium over conventional notebook PCs - and a lack of
applications that take advantage of the Tablet PC's functions.
There is also the absence of an aggressive marketing campaign from
Microsoft.
"Nobody is able to actually be profitable making the Tablet PC,"
said Kan.
On the software side, the applications that Kan says are needed
have been slow in coming - and not just from third-party
suppliers.
Only in October Microsoft launched its OneNote note-taking
software, which was previewed a year ago.
Users of the company's Office productivity suite also had to
wait until October and the release of Office 2003 to get Tablet PC
support, but now the company has started a push to get developers
behind the platform.
At its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles last
month Microsoft gave developers a new SDK (software development
kit) with tools designed to make it easier to develop for the
operating system.
"People really do need to know what they can do on the Tablet
PC," said Dixon.
The operating system will keep evolving too. At the Comdex trade
show later this month, Microsoft is expected to provide more
details about the next version of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.
Codenamed Lonestar, the latest version should ship in the first
half of 2004 and offer features such as improved handwriting
recognition.
Julia Lerman, an independent software developer, recently
started using an Acer C110 Tablet PC and is developing a Tablet PC
application for one of her clients.
"I can't get over how great the handwriting recognition was
right out of the box, but it is still many times more efficient for
me to type," she said.
Lerman sees forms on Tablet PCs as the greatest opportunity.
"Being able to walk around with the tablet as though it was a
clipboard and writing is huge."
"I think the Tablet PC needs to be more than a novelty for
people to [grab hold of]. The applications, tools and utilities
that developers will create are what will make this happen," Lerman
said.
The entry of IBM and Dell into the market is important if Tablet
PCs are to penetrate further into enterprises, said Alan Promisel,
an analyst at IDC. He believes both will launch devices should
there be customer demand.
Tablet PCs are helping expand the overall PC market and enabling
him to sell machines to places that have not used computers before
as a replacement for paper pads or forms, said Scott Eckert,
president and chief executive officer of Motion Computing.
Earlier this week the company announced a deal to provide 5,000
of its Motion M1300 Tablet PCs to HealthSouth for use in workflow
applications in its approximately 1,400 out-patient rehabilitation
centres in the US.
"The Tablet appears to be the ultimate evolution in mobile
computing," he said.
Martyn Williams, Joris Evers and Tom Krazit write for IDG News
Service