Apple iPad, Kindle Sales Warn of Coming Tablet Tsunami (
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Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle are effectively two
sides of the same coin. They are highly portable in their own right, and they
are well-connected, meaning the information they need to make them useful is
highly portable as well. Of course, tablets and e-readers are different devices—they
are aimed at different markets, have differing capabilities and perform
different, but related, functions.
It should be no surprise that the sales of both are
similar. Apple has sold about 3.5 million iPads. Amazon has sold about 3
million Kindles if analyst reports are correct. And, of course, there are other
e-readers also selling well. The iPad costs quite a bit more than the Kindle,
but it does more, so again, no surprise. But in reality the story of tablet
computing goes beyond the iPad or the e-readers.
What we're seeing right now is the first ripple in what
will eventually transform much about how information is consumed. The explosion
of tablet sales is probably a few months away, but when it happens, a great deal
will change, and you can see the beginnings in how these devices are being used
now. We're already seeing the iPad make inroads into the enterprise, for
example, and the Kindle is changing how the written word is consumed—content
for this device is already outselling traditional print at Amazon.
But it's what's going to happen next that matters most.
Once the tablet format becomes generally available and more fully capable of
being integrated into the enterprise, you can expect that it will form a new
niche for hardware at your company. It's similar in some ways to what happened
when laptop computers started becoming affordable enough to take the place of
desktop computers—they started selling in huge numbers and have now topped the
older format in sales. Tablets will eventually do this to laptops.
But this does not mean that tablet computers will kill
off laptop computers, any more than laptops got rid of desktop machines. They
will coexist and form a third tier of hardware that you will need to support,
and that will need to become part of your enterprise. But you can be assured
that they will come.
The reason, of course, is that the people who work for
your company need information readily available, and they need access to that
information if they are to keep up with the pace of business. With the business
world moving to a 24/7 model, the people who live in this world need
information all of the time. This is why they've bought laptop computers in
record numbers and why they will buy tablet computers in numbers that are at
least as large.
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