When it comes to mobility, several Tablet PCs have led the way. Remember the NEC LitePad? Lightyears ahead of the competition. But it disappeared. Why? For many of the reasons it was so good: It was super thin. It was super light. It didn’t waste weight on an internal CD/DVD player. Its processor was a miser, which helped save precious battery life.
Unfortunately, there were many voices online and offline that talked down designs like this. I heard reps from Best Buy argue, for instance, that no one wanted a system without a CD player. I argued it was much about education. People needed to see how things were migrating to the Internet–changing how systems were going to be used–and didn’t you want to be part of the future?
Of course, it’s true that some things have changed slowly. There isn’t as much online content as soon as I had expected. That’s changing now though. And opinions have been slow to change too.
Well, I see both making a move–and both are in large part courtesy of Apple. Yes, Apple. First, the success of iTunes is helping the content creators see a possible different future. There’s more room to go here, however, but things are getting better. My guess is that within the next year or so TV networks, major studios, and music providers will all realize that they can relax and stream content online–with ads–and make more money. Not less.
Anyway, there’s another part of this equation that’s changing too and that’s the acceptance of trimmed down machines. Intel is going this way with its processors, sacrificing performance for battery life. We are in a performance lull, which is benefiting the competitive landscape of mobile systems.
But it’s not really Intel that is persuading people that mobility is good. It’s Apple and its new Air. When the Air was first launched, there was much criticism. No CD/DVD. Few connectors. Limited battery capacity. Not enough horsepower. However, some realized that these were the design tradeoffs that a good mobile system is probably going to have. If you want a faster, loaded system, go elsewhere. There are plenty of machines to choose from. Well, it appears that this latter group is wining the conversation war.
I’m reading more and more about people proudly showing off their new Air laptops with resounding acceptance. People like the lightness, the sleekness, the accessibility. The other stuff–you know the high performance stuff–is just not needed in this type of computer.
Yes, the tide it turning.
And my guess is that as thin and mobile become more “in” in the Apple world, so will it be in the Tablet space. And maybe, just maybe Tablets will make it back into retail. They’ll become cool for students to own. They’ll become acceptable as a lead laptop. The market will grow.
It’s unfortunate that Microsoft and its partners had to wait for Apple to fix this marketing problem, but it appears to be doing just that. Better late than never. And better Apple than no one else.
It’s an interesting lesson–at least in terms of what made marketing sense over the last few years: The big voices that needed convincing online were the journalists (who have led much of the Web 2.0 growth by the way–so by definition and by monetary gain they’ve been the leaders) and the young early adopters. Both groups have disproportionate voices online. At least for the last five years or so you couldn’t gain much success without their acceptance. The Tablet PC convinced a few, but not many. And–at least in my view–as Tablet designs went sideways and started becoming more like market followers than leaders–it lost more and more possible converts. It’s true, these designs became more acceptable to institutional buyers, but they didn’t help to persuade the online voice, which was needed in order to grow greater market acceptance.
Now the next five years may need a different marketing recipe. As the next generation of online innovation occurs, new powerful voices will emerge and maybe they’ll marginalize this 2.0 generation of trendsetters–we’ll have to see. But either way, I think we’re finally at the point where Tablets can actually be efficiently and successfully marketed.