I’ve been reading various online articles that reference the recent In-Stat/MDR report on the Tablet PC market. As of this morning I count 21 references in news.google.com to In-Stat/MDR’s published document. I’m sure there are more.
It appears to be a reasoned report. The press accounts are similar to this one by Mark Cox on eChannelLine.
Interestingly, the eChannelLine’s title, “Tablet PC hasn’t been successful,” is more ominous sounding than the actual report seems to be. The report seems to indicate that sales were OK in vertical markets and are likely to rise. And, in fact, the Tablet market is approaching the sale of its 1,000,000th unit. Not bad for a startup. So why the disconnect? I think many are expecting more. And the last paragraph in this article sums it up:
“…the report notes, if the Tablet is going to make it anywhere, it will have to be in the commercial market. To date, there has been little consumer interest in the Tablet, and that, the report says, is not likely to change.”
Actually, I think the consumer interest is there. The lackluster commercial sales in my book are more indicative of the Tablet marketing strategy employed to date than the Tablet itself. You have to get the word out first. You have to communicate with the customer. You have to communicate with those that are going to sell the Tablets.
In fact, what’s frustrating to me is that in this case, the article is published at a site visited by over 100,000 VARS, system builders, and the like. Think of it. These are the people that would sell and deploy Tablets. But I bet most aren’t. They’ve probably never used a Tablet themselves or if they have it’s been for five minutes trying out the recognizer in Journal. They don’t know how or why customers would use a Tablet. Instead, they read headlines like this one on eChannelLine. Expecting the customers to pull the market along is inefficient.
The “Tablet isn’t for consumers” story is a myth. Tell it to the students using Tablets. Tell it to the start ups that leverage the flexibility of the Tablet in their highly fluid states. Tell it to the doctors, lawyers, managers, engineers, and on and on, that purchased a Tablet out of their own pocket–and not as part of an IT deployment strategy–because they saw it could help them. Tell it to the teacher surfing the Net on the couch. Tell it to the 750 developers that are working on Tablet-enabled products like those on TabletPCPost. Tell us Tablet users that we don’t exist and you’re sure to get a response. Because yes, Mark, we do exist. If you have any doubts, check the user blogs (Tabula PC, TheTabletPCsWeblog), or the Tablet news sites (TabletPC2, WhatIsNew, TabletPCTalk), or the forums (TabletPCBuzz, TabletQuestions).
Yes… bad marketing is hampering Tablet PC adoption.. After a year a lot of people *still* don’t understand what makes a Tablet PC special.
In fact I’ve just met a victim of Tablet Deceit recently, he bought a Hyundai Tablet wannabe (runs home edition, passive touch screen) cause
– It converts.
– It uses a stylus
– The salesman told him it was a tablet.
And now when he looks at my M200
– He realises he doesn’t have handwriting recognition.
– He doesn’t have journal
– Mouse accuracy is bad
– Can’t right click.
All in all… BAAADDD case indeed, I knew this was gonna happen when MS was going to release the product with the non copyrightable term Tablet PC.. =P
I’m a student (software engineering). As a group, we know about tablets; I love OneNote (on my 4 year old laptop), and I can see very well how a Tablet PC would be a good fit.
But I can tell you why they’re not selling: Three freaking thousand dollars (CDN), that’s why.
Yeah, many Tablets are more expensive. You might want to check into the Gateway Tablet PC. There isn’t much price differential from what I understand. Realize, you often have to pay extra for new technology. That’s the nature of the things. For me, the added cost is worth it. You’ll have to access this for yourself when you decide to upgrade your notebook. I know there are many excellent notebooks out there.
Indeed, the Gateway m275 series are within a few hundred dollars of laptops of similar performance and weight specs.
A few points:
If you are currently in the market for a performance notebook PC, you can have ink for a few hundred dollars more. It’s a no-brainer: buy a convertible and if you don’t like or use the Tablet functionality – no big loss. But, the customer has to be shown the way….
If you are not curently in the market for a notebook PC, ink costs thousands of dollars (tougher choice: slate vs. convertible and will it work for me?)
I believe there is also a public perception that “Centrino” means “Celeron” – bad naming choice on Intel’s part. The high-powered TPCs like my Gateway m275xl boast a 1.6GHZ Centrino processor. Off the top of my head, I think the equivalency is somewhere around a P4 2.6GHZ. It’s no slacker. Many of the sales staff have no idea what the difference between Celeron and Centrino is and assume the worse. Here, nobody is showing the customer the merchandise because it is assumed bottom rung.
Bravo. This is almost a Manifesto. I know from my experience as a Caterpillar, Inc. IT Asset Manager, that it
Well said… The interest is definitely there. But People like to see what they are buying before they buy it, and try it out in the stores. The Tablets being difficult to find and demo in stores like Best Buy, Comp USA and other retailers combined with the marketing efforts not being geared towards the consumer have made getting the Tablets into consumers hands a slow process.
http://www.TabletPc2.com has be redesigned, stop buy see and our a new look!
Well said… The interest is definitely there. But People like to see what they are buying before they buy it, and try it out in the stores. The Tablets being difficult to find and demo in stores like Best Buy, Comp USA and other retailers combined with the marketing efforts not being geared towards the consumer have made getting the Tablets into consumers hands a slow process.
http://www.TabletPc2.com has be redesigned, stop buy see and our a new look!
I’m glad ‘tablet pc’ wasn’t copyrighted 😉
I think that marketing to consumers would invariably help business sales. People need to be educated as this is a technology like nothing else we’ve seen. The danger is that consumer’s first and lasting impression is that of a business tool. The message should be much more focused on the ‘revolution’ to make everyone understand what it’s all about. But i suspect this wouldn’t be good for ROI.