Although Apple currently has a deal with a single carrier in
the U.S., AT&T, for its bestselling iPhone, recent rumors indicate the
company could be considering multiple carriers for its much-speculated tablet
PC.
Apple’s tablet, widely expected to make its debut during a
Jan. 27 presentation in San Francisco, has not been officially confirmed by the
company; nonetheless, media and analysts have been speculating for months about
the device’s possible form and function, generally seeming to agree that Apple
has developed a portable media device capable of displaying everything from
e-books to television shows. The newest talk, however, centers on the
possibility that both AT&T and Verizon Wireless are in discussions to
provide the tablet with a 3G connection.
"Apple is in talks with both AT&T and Verizon to support
the tablet, according to sources within the companies," Clayton
Morris wrote on FoxNews.com on Jan. 21. "One version of the device will run
on CDMA networks such as Verizon’s, and one will operate on GSM networks like
that owned by AT&T."
If that prediction pans out, and an Apple tablet is offered
for both AT&T and Verizon, it will add another wrinkle to the increasingly
antagonistic relationship between the two carriers. Late in 2009, AT&T
asked a federal court in Atlanta to stop Verizon from airing ads that
derided AT&T’s 3G coverage in the U.S., a request subsequently turned down;
the two companies have continued to fire direct broadsides at each other in
their advertising.
Tethering a data plan and carrier to the tablet may help
Apple reduce the cost of the device, estimated by analysts to range anywhere
from $600 to nearly $1,000, but at the risk of alienating a certain subset of
customers. In a survey of 500 randomly selected users by online electronics
marketplace Retrevo, some 44 percent of respondents said that a monthly data
plan requirement would stop them from purchasing a tablet. Another 70 percent
said that a tablet priced at $700 and above would be out of their price
range.
Apple's 2010 revenues would be drastically affected by the
success or failure of a tablet PC. Just as sales of traditional iPods declined
in 2009, as those devices’ market-share was cannibalized by the iPod Touch and
the iPhone, a tablet PC has the potential to chew into the market for Apple’s
other devices. Apple is rumored to be negotiating with a variety of publishers,
including HarperCollins and Conde Nast Publications, to port their content
wirelessly onto a tablet.
Enterprise Mobility News & Reviews 
