LAS VEGAS—If there’s one thing
that the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show will be remembered for, it’s as the
show where tablet PCs of all stripes made their appearance in the mainstream.
Whether as ultra-portable multitouch devices, or else e-readers that perform
more traditional computing functions such as Web surfing, tablets proved to be
one of the show’s more buzzed-about aspects.
The question is, will consumers gravitate toward them?
The answer to that question may not make or break tech companies in 2010,
particularly larger ones such as Apple or Microsoft, but it may help determine
how PCs evolve in months and years to come. If tablets prove to be a hit, then
they’ll likely become ubiquitous in the hardware space; if they fail, then this
year’s CES will be remembered for, among other things, being the flashpoint of
a temporary fad.
Tablet PCs earned some buzz for Microsoft at the show. In the hours leading up
to Microsoft
CEO Steve Ballmer’s Jan. 6 keynote address, rumors circulated around the
blogosphere that he would use his speech to unveil a tablet PC built by
Hewlett-Packard. “Mr. Ballmer will show the as-yet-unnamed H.P. device, which
will be touted as a multimedia whiz with e-reader and multi-touch functions,”
read the New York Times blog posting that started the scuttlebutt; the blogger,
Ashlee Vance, cited unnamed sources for his information.
Perhaps taking a page from Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who is famous for waiting
until the end of his presentations to announce new products, Ballmer waited
until the end of his speech to show off the Hewlett-Packard device.
Click
here for more netbooks and tablets shown at CES.
“Almost as portable as a phone, but powerful as a PC running Windows 7,”
Ballmer said as he held the flat screen toward the audience. “The emerging
category of PCs should take advantage of the touch and portability
capabilities.” The tablet PC, which will be available at an unnamed point in
2010, will be able to surf the Web, and display e-books and multimedia content.
In addition to the HP device, Ballmer displayed—but did not
demonstrate—similar tablet PC offerings from Pegatron and Archos.
Click
here for more of Ballmer displaying tablet PCs, new HTC phone.
That wasn’t HP’s only tablet-style device displayed at the show. Following a
trend that developed throughout 2009, but which reached something of a head at
CES, the company introduced the HP Touchsmart tm2, a notebook convertible into
a multitouch tablet by sliding the screen down and over the keyboard. Retailing
for $949, the Touchsmart is notable for allowing users to write on a virtual
notepad with a stylus, then converting that handwriting into text.
Other devices on display at CES, including the Fujitsu Lifebook T4410,
mimicked that ability to transform from a notebook to a multitouch tablet in a
few easy motions. Other companies displayed their own unique variations on the
theme; Lenovo’s IdeaPad U1 hybrid notebook, for example, features an 11.6-inch
screen that detaches to become a multitouch tablet running Lenovo’s Skylight
Linux-based operating system. Powering this pseudo-tablet is a Qualcomm ARM
Snapdragon processor.
In addition to traditional tablet PCs, a number of companies used CES to
debut e-readers. On Jan. 7, Plastic Logic formally unveiled the Que, a
10.7-inch screen that the company is targeting at business users by emphasizing
its ability to download and display Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and PDF
documents. Other companies, including iRiver, Freescale, Onyx, Spring
Design, Skiff and Marvell, are also debuting e-readers or associated
accessories and software. Samsung announced two readers, the 6-inch E6 and the
10-inch E101, at CES.
Many of these companies are attempting to seize on the growing popularity of
e-readers, which despite being dismissed by some analysts early in 2009 as a
niche product managed to become a hot seller during the holiday season.
Occupying much of the public mind share devoted to e-readers is Amazon.com’s
Kindle line, which the online retailer claims is collectively the bestselling
product on its site; in December, an analyst from advisory group Collins
Stewart estimated that the company could earn as much as $301.4 million off the
Kindle in 2009.
Ahead of CES, Amazon.com announced a new version of its large-screen e-reader,
the Kindle DX, with global wireless capability that will allow e-books to be
downloaded in over 100 countries. Retailing for $489, the device is scheduled
to begin shipment on Jan. 19.
Overshadowing these tablets and e-readers at CES, however, is the rumored Apple
tablet PC. Although Apple itself refuses to officially confirm the development
of such a device, recent reports have suggested that the company could host an
event in San Francisco during the
last week in January to announce its existence.
With that in mind, manufacturers’ announcements of their own tablet PCs at CES
could be seen as either an attempt to capitalize on what they see as the next
big trend, or else an attempt to lessen or pre-empt an Apple tablet’s effect on
the broader market.
In any case, the announcement of a tablet PC was seen by many as the high point
of Ballmer’s keynote address, which otherwise centered largely on Windows 7,
Xbox 360 and Bing. Microsoft’s next big release for consumers and businesses
will be Office 2010, which is in widespread beta testing. A Microsoft
spokesperson told eWEEK on Jan. 7 that some two million people had downloaded
the beta version of the productivity suite.
During his speech, Ballmer termed 2009 to be a year of “economic turbulence,”
but praised Windows 7 as “the fastest-selling operating system in history.”
Although early analyst reports suggested that Windows 7 sold well in the weeks
following its Oct. 22 release, Microsoft has acknowledged that longer-term
prospects for the operating system will be largely dependent on PC sales.
With regard to Bing, Ballmer suggested that the search engine in its current
state represented “the beginning of a long journey, but we think we’re off to a
good start.” In a separate conversation with eWEEK at CES, a Microsoft
spokesperson suggested that Bing’s road map for 2010 would include refining its
data ingestion process, developing ways to better sense what users want out of
particular search, and structuring results more efficiently.
Despite the amount of attention devoted to tablets, though, Microsoft’s
fortunes in 2010 will depend on other factors. Although
Ballmer did not bring up the topic of Windows Mobile 7 during his keynote,
the success or failure of that mobile operating system—due to be released at
some point in 2010—will determine whether Microsoft can indeed remain a player
in the mobile space. Even with the release of Mobile 6.5
in October 2009, which included more robust touch-screen capabilities and
widgets, Microsoft has seen its share of the mobile operating-system market
fall in the face of stiff competition from Google Android, Apple’s iPhone, and
other consumer- and business-oriented devices.
Ballmer also mentioned initiatives such as “Project Natal,” which supposedly
turns the user into a controller for the Xbox 360. Yet even that could be seen
as something of a sideshow. If Microsoft wants to reverse its past few quarters
of declining revenue, it will need to execute its core business well—no matter
what sort of nifty tablets its manufacturing partners, or its competitors,
continue to produce.
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