I recently read an article in Laptop Magazine about the most anticipated tablets scheduled to hit the market over the next several months. Some things caught my attention.
First, all the tablets listed were slate models and offered a variety of screen sizes. The smallest screen listed was 7 inches, while the largest was listed at 12 inches. Screen size is important to me so I was glad to see that the idea of larger devices wasn’t completely dead. The second thing was the variety of operating systems offered. Windows 7 and Android were prominent, but a couple of the tablet descriptions didn’t include an operating system. Based on the screen shots and a little web surging it appears that some of the devices may use proprietary operating systems. We’ll have to wait and see. And finally, almost all the tablets listed were clearly aimed at the consumer. In fact the only “enterprise” tablet that made the list was the Cisco Cius. The Cius is an interesting device as it will use the Android OS, a smaller 7 inch screen, 802.11n, 3G and 4G, and Bluetooth. I’m sure the company is hoping to leverage its VoIP and data systems against the needs of business users. In my opinion the Cius would provide significant functionality and potential for increased productivity to those businesses that already employ Cisco phone or data services. It makes sense to integrate tablets into a system that already uses the same infrastructure.
The two tablets that were conspicuously absent from the list were the BlackBerry PlayBook and the HP Slate which are both being marketed as enterprise devices. I love the idea of the PlayBook because it offers real-time video conferencing like the Cius and the ability to pair it with a BlackBerry smartphone to access online content. The potential to tether a smartphone to a tablet is quite appealing to me.
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