[pandaassembly]

My bet is, that the tablet sales will be good in terms of absolute numbers, but not as high the industry had wished.

I still do not see the too many compelling usecases when comparing a tablet with a smartphone + netbook/ultra leight weight laptop.

Hence the hugh success of the Ipad is in my opinion not much a result of its advanced features or even its slick design but rather its clever position as a must have status symbol.

[cageface]

I'm inclined to think so too, and my own iPad has mostly been relegated to super-Kindle status. Ironically, "ultra" notebooks like the new Macbook Air destroy 90% of the appeal of a tablet for me. Three pounds and eleven inches is not a burden to port around when it's that capable.

But I know I'm also not a typical user.

[pinaceae]

the iPad sees record adoption among mobile field forces. big pharma is going nuts over it, placing orders of 10.000+ ipads at once. it has no moving parts, it is idiot proof. if it breaks, the rep can go into a best buy, buy a new one, log+sync, done - everything works as before, including the apps. with iOS5 and OTA upgrades this will be even easier.

the pain of fielding 10000 hp tablet pcs globally suddenly goes away. for a cheaper device, that is lighter, faster, sturdier, with great battery life. with a stable, consistent OS environment below it. no more OS images, driver fuckups, etc etc etc.

the iPad will destroy headcounts in enterprise IT just like Exchange did in the realm of secretaries.

[xradionut]

Really? How long have you worked in enterprise IT?

We been dealing with mobile users for decades and it's a small percentage of our staff/budget that actually deals with in-field devices and issues. iPads and smart phones are nice, but the sales force and folks at remote sites find themselves more productive with a laptop that has a keyboard and the ability to run "true applications".

As for HP, it hasn't been the HP of lore in decades.

[pinaceae]

some years by now actually. what is a "true application"? siebel? sap crm? both dead dead dead.

combining crm and clm on the ipad rocks the world of the sales reps out there. no more paper. digital signatures on a slim device.

i saw the hordes of IT needed to manage the windows tablets out there, maintaining windows SMS servers or some 3rd party solutions, then also patching and updating all that other "true apps". noticed that apple solved that through the app store, once and for all?

servers are getting killed by SaaS, notebooks by the iPad. SAP has fielded 17000 iPads internally...

[JonoW]

Aren't you describing a niche here? Sure tablets are going to be great with some uses in business, travelling salesman, in meetings/presentations etc. But surely the vast majority of office employees sit behind a desk, making a cheaper more powerfull desktop computer the standard choice?

[jshen]

I have a phone, a desktop, a MacBook air (I.e. A better netbook), and an iPad. I use the iPad far more than any of the other devices when I'm not coding.

[pandaassembly]

Have you collected some usage statistics ?

[jshen]

Only anecdotes. Have you collected any statistics on IPads as merely status symbols?