If prophet Moses was to rewrite the ‘Ten Commandments’ on Mount Sinai today, he would not have to necessarily etch his words in stone. He would have a plethora of options — a notebook, netbook, or even a tablet PC like Apple’s iPad. And, if predictions are on the dot, the tablet will provide stiff competition to notebooks and netbooks with over 100 tablets hitting the market by end 2011.
Consumer electronic majors like Apple, Samsung, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Fijitsu, IBM, LG Electronics, Toshiba and Panasonic have either recently introduced, or are talking about launching, these devices. India, too, has its own Adam Tablet which is yet to hit the market. The Hyderabad-based company Notion Ink was founded by Rohan Shravan, a 24-year-old engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur.
Now Panasonic has developed a new smart terminal called the VIERA Tablet to enable easy access to a variety of cloud services in conjunction with its VIERA digital televisions. The VIERA Tablet, which will be hit the global market within this year, marks Panasonic’s first step toward cloud-based services including video streaming and e-books. Samsung said its Galaxy Tab recently crossed a 1.5 million global shipment milestone. It also announced that a Wi-Fi-only version of the Galaxy Tab will be available in the United States in early 2011.
The global appeal of Apple’s iPad (estimated to have sold 7.5 million at the end of last quarter and estimated to sell 10-12 million this year) is simultaneously brazening others to enter the fold and compete for this quickly growing market. “Without doubt, 2011 will be the year of the tablet. Apple’s launch of the iPad has left an undeniable print on the mobile computing space. After a decade with minimal success, a tablet computing device is (finally) garnering mass market appeal,” states Shawn Dubravac, CFA, Chief Economist and Director of Research, Consumer Electronics Association.
“I have a list of 80+ tablets that have been announced and many of these will see the light of day at the International 2011 Consumer Electronic Show (CES),” says Dubravac, adding that design cycles as they are mean tablets are really a 2011 story, not as much a 2010 one, and CES will mark the debut for many of these.
Other analyts think similarly. By 2015, 82 million US consumers — one-third of US online consumers — will be using a tablet, according to Forrester analyst Sara Rotman Epps. But not all of them will be iPads.
Depending on the categories that research firms devise, the iPad could either be a tablet PC or a media tablet PC. IDC, for instance, defines media tablets as tablet-form factor devices with 7- to 12-inch colour displays. They are currently based on ARM processors and run lightweight operating systems (OSes) such as Apple’s iPhone OS and Google’s Android OS. This distinguishes them from tablet PCs, which are based on x86 processors and run full PC OSes.
Gartner, on its part, defines a tablet PC as having a touchscreen size of 5 inches or more, with a full-function operating system such as Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP or Mac OS X. A media tablet is defined as a device that has a screen size of 5 inch or larger but with a restricted-function OS, such as iPhone, Android or Chrome. They support touch and run a lightweight OS such as iOS, Android, WebOS or Meego. Examples of media tablets are the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Cisco Cius.
Gartner includes Tablet PCs in its PC market statistics and forecasts. However, it excludes media tablets from both.
Definitions apart, research firm IDC predicts worldwide media tablet shipments will grow from 7.6 million units in 2010 to more than 46 million units in 2014, representing a compound annual growth rate of 57.4 per cent. Driven by sales of the iPad, worldwide media tablet sales to end users are forecast to reach 19.5 million units in 2010, according to Gartner.
Media tablets are poised for strong growth with worldwide end user sales projected to total 54.8 million units in 2011 — up 181 per cent from 2010, and surpass 208 million units in 2014. Gartner analysts say the impact of media tablets on other devices will vary among segments. “The all-in-one nature of media tablets will result in the cannibalisation of other consumer electronics devices such as e-readers, gaming devices and media players,” says Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “Mini notebooks will suffer from the strongest cannibalisation threat as media tablet average selling prices drop below $300 over the next 2 years.”
Year of 3D – Again While 2010 CES “was certainly defined by 3D” (included 3D content, hardware and services), 2011 CES will again play home to the entire 3D ecosystem, believes Dubravac.
For instance, much of Panasonic’s attention at the Consumer Electronics Show today was devoted to 3-D, which it predicted will capture almost a third of the worldwide TV market in 2014. The company announced more 3-D sets, Blu-ray players and five new consumer-grade 3-D camcorders, with prices for the latter starting below $1,000. Likewise, Sony announced it is putting 3-D on just about every visually-related product it makes, including a full line of 3-D point-and-shoot cameras, 3-D camcorders, 3-D laptops and 3-D screens.
Expect to see more 3D than ever before. “We’ll start with bigger, more feature-rich 3DTVs – a given. But 3D will expand wider than it did last year. We’ll start with 3D eyewear where no standard exists (yet). I expect to see several companies highlighting 3D active shutter eyewear solutions. Autostereoscopic – 3D without the need for eyewear – will be more pronounced this coming year. I also expect to see 3D more pronounced in the rear-seat of the vehicle, in the palm of your hand through mobile devices, and digital signage,” he says.
Dubravac also believes “the bigger story in 2011 will be internet-delivered offerings”. “This won’t be about the technical feasibility of bringing the Internet to the TV, this will be about the meaningfulness for the end-user of marrying the TV with the Internet.
