Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Guess who is wrong about the future of the tablet computer

Mary Watkins, Financial Times, 2011-03-30 - Tablets to boost IT market despite earthquake:

A surge in demand for tablet devices such as Apple’s iPad is expected to help boost overall IT spending this year and offset any negative impact on the supply chain from this month’s devastating earthquake in Japan...

...New figures from Gartner, the research firm, predicted that global spending on IT would rise 5.6 per cent to $3,600bn in 2011. The forecast, which was revised up from an initial forecast of a 5.1 per cent increase, includes spending on computing hardware by consumers and companies, as well as enterprise software, IT services and telecom equipment.

And then there's this:

Asher Moses, SMH Australia, 2011-03-30 - Tablets might be a flash in the pan: Microsoft global chief strategy officer:

As virtually the entire consumer electronics industry throws its weight behind tablet computers, Microsoft's global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie said today that he did not know whether the booming new category was here to stay.

Speaking at a lunch held in Sydney by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), Mundie, who reports directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, said he did not know whether tablets like the iPad would "remain with us or not".

I feel like we're reliving history all over again, only this time the part of DEC's Ken Olsen is played by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer.


1 comment:

Dan Bergen said...

Asus has the Eee Slate EP121 powered by a i5, with an SSD and Wacom pen. Better for web developers because it can run both Photoshop and Alpha Five.