The War
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The
War
As
with smartphones, Google soon became the operating-system supplier of choice
for manufacturers looking to break into the tablet game. There was just one
tiny issue: Android had originally been developed for smartphones and their
necessarily smaller screens, necessitating the creation of a tablet-optimized
operating system. Enter Android 3.0, code-named "Honeycomb," which first
appeared in early 2011 on the Motorola Xoom tablet.
Around
the same time, Samsung, LG Electronics and other companies revealed that their
latest tablets would run Honeycomb. Meanwhile, HP announced it would port the
webOS operating system onto not only mobile devices, but to PCs, as well.
"The
webOS is an unbelievably attractive piece of technology, in that it can
interconnect seamlessly a number of various devices," HP CEO Leo Apotheker told
reporters during a March 14 press conference. "We see this as a massive, very
global platform."
In
March 2011, Apple released the iPad 2, hoping to continue its dominance of the
tablet market in the face of these rising competitors. Customer response
suggested the general public's appetite for tablets hadn't slowed in the past
year. That consumer interest bled over into the business sphere, with IT
administrators reporting more and more employees interested in integrating
tablets into their daily workflow.
But
while Microsoft had collaborated with manufacturers to produce a handful of
tablets running Windows 7-which supports gesture control-it refrained from
pushing hard into the consumer-tablet market. Current rumors suggest the
company will finally make its presence felt in the segment with the release of
a tablet-optimized "Windows 8," perhaps due in 2012.
The
future remains unclear, although analysts generally assume that Apple's early
advantage will allow it to hold a significant portion of the tablet market for
years to come. According to a recent Gartner report, Apple's iOS will continue
to dominate the media-tablet market through 2015, with a 47.1 percent share.
Hard on its heels will be Android, with 38.6 percent, followed by Research In
Motion's QNX operating system with 10 percent. Hewlett-Packard's webOS will
trail with 3 percent, followed by MeeGo with 1 percent and "other operating
systems" with 0.2 percent.
If
the tablet PC's past few decades are any indication, though, anything can
happen.
