Five reasons why tablet will be a hit next year

BANGALORE, INDIA: Many technologies that became popular among the masses in the past were later embraced by corporates. A few examples--public Instant Messengers, social networking sites, CDs and DVDs, flash drives, web apps, and the list goes on.

Now, another technology has reached that tipping point, and we're bound to see it take the corporate world by storm in the coming year-tablets. These devices had actually failed to really take off in their earlier avatar as tablet PCs. But now, they're bound to make a grand comeback in the corporate world, and here's why we believe so.

Users are comfortable using multi-touch, the main interface for tablets

Touch screen based tablet PCs have been around for ages, but they simply didn't succeed in the market. The key reason for this is that their primary interface remained the touchpad (or trackpad) and keyboard, with touchscreen functionality being just another interface.

There weren't enough killer applications available to leverage the touch screen capability, so users stuck to using the mouse and keyboard. They didn't have enough reason to switch. But Apple's iPad introduced multi-touch as the primary interface, so users had no option but to use it. It had already set the base for users by introducing multi-touch in its iPhone and iPod products, so a huge base of users were already comfortable using the technology.

That's why it wasn't surprising that the iPad sold millions of units within months of being launched, because users were already comfortable using a multi-touch interface. Now that more vendors are introducing tablets with multi-touch interface, they're bound to succeed.

More multi-touch ready apps

Multi-touch capability alone will not make tablets popular. We've had multi-touch support in various operating systems for ages. What's also needed are killer applications that will leverage the capability. That was missing for quite some time. So the good news is that vendors have now become aware and are building platforms and SDKs that will leverage the capability of multi-touch from ground-up.

iPad's iOS for instance, was built to use multi-touch, and today has around 200,000+ applications available for it, which can be downloaded for from Apple's online store. Google's Android OS for instance, has native support for multi-touch, making it easy for developers to build apps around it. NEC recently announced its own Android based tablet, squarely aimed at the corporate users. It's meant to be used by retail stores and warehouses as an e-shop terminal or a logistics terminal for stock taking, etc.

{#PageBreak#}

More Apps, thanks to the cloud

Lots of people have called this as the year of the cloud, and not without good reason. Every major vendor has their finger in the cloud pie, and is providing their bouquet of applications over the cloud. Most enterprise apps are becoming web-aware, meaning they can be easily accessible through a web-browser. There are lots of private players who're developing cloud based applications. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc are providing cloud computing development platforms and have attracted developers in masses to build apps on their platforms.

While most devices will benefit from apps moving to the cloud, the biggest benefit will go to mobile devices, because people want to be able to access their applications on the move. In the process, the effect will rub off on tablets as well.

An interesting use for tablets can be for application and desktop streaming. So organizations that virtualize their desktops could stream it to tablet users, thereby giving those users the flexibility to access from anywhere.

More bandwidth, thanks to 3G

Yes, we should hopefully see 3G finally become a reality next year, with most major telecom vendors having made their announcements this year. 3G will give a much needed shot in the arm to most mobile devices, which till now, were starving for bandwidth. It will allow more applications to be used when on the move. Many tablets that are entering the market are 3G ready, so they will certainly benefit from this technology. So as more applications move to the cloud, it will be a boon for tablets because they'll be able to access those apps over 3G. The other connectivity interfaces like WiFi and networking are already present in tablets, but 3G will allow working from anywhere. Initially, 3G might be very expensive for the average consumer, so it could be embraced by corporates first.

More compact and portable, thanks to the slate design

Have you ever tried using your laptop when you're traveling economy class on a flight? It's a fight because there's not enough space to open the keyboard and work. And if the person sitting in the seat in front of you reclines his/her seat, then you've had it! Tablets, thanks to their slate design can be used anywhere because the person would hold the device with one hand, and use it with the other. Moreover, most tablets that have been launched in the market have their Operating Systems optimized for the underlying hardware.

This allows them to be used for running multimedia applications (audio, video, etc). Plus, it allows for longer battery backups (the iPad for instance can last up to 10 hours). So you can use it for a prolonged period of time when on the move. Business users would therefore find tablets more very convenient to use while on the move (especially on a flight!).

So as we have it, the tablets have already been popularized by the iPad globally, so it's only a matter of time before it takes off in India as well. So hopefully next year, it will become a powerful addition to an organization's fleet of laptops and smartphones in the coming year.