Joe Wilcox on Microsoft’s Partner conference: “I am rather stunned by just how many attendees use Tablet PCs. By eye count, I’d guess as many as one in 20 or 30. Yesterday, seven of the 20 people sitting immediately around me were using Tablet PCs.”
The 5,500 attendees are Microsoft partners. These are the people that recommend, sell and service high-tech products. And, in many ways, this group is the most important to win over to new technologies like Tablet PC. Because if they believe in the product, they will recommend it–they will sell it. So, the way I see it, Microsoft already has won over the most important customer: The partner.”
And Sean Campbell who was also at the conference says Joe’s numbers are low:
“I personally think the numbers are higher. At least from the folks I see using their PC it is probably more like 35% but I am pretty familiar with nearly all the Tablet PC models and can spot them from a distance pretty well so that might be the biggest reason I see a few more.
And by far the most popular Tablet PC is the M200. It is truly amazing how many of them I have seen. It seems to be at least 50% of the Tablet PC’s that I see.”
This is all very encouraging. These are Microsoft friendly businesses and it’s great to see the adoption rate growing. These partners can have a tremendous amplifying impact on the exposure of the Tablet PC.