Blaming Microsoft For Tablet PC Sales Problems
from the blame-everyone dept
I never understood all the hype surrounding the Tablet PC. Plenty of companies had come out with similar devices, and they had all failed - and yet Microsoft seemed to think everyone suddenly wanted the Tablet PC they'd rejected time and time again. So, it's absolutely no surprise that the Tablet PC has failed yet again. The various makers of such devices, who got suckered in by Microsoft to believe that this time was the time Tablet PCs would take off are now blaming Microsoft for the Tablet PC's failure, saying that Microsoft is charging too much. Of course, if that was the case, why did they agree to buy it and make machines based on the Tablet PC idea? The real problem was the marketing decision to position Tablet PCs as a separate category of machines, instead of what they really are: laptops with touch screens. If they were simply marketed as laptops with the nice additional feature of a touch screen, there wouldn't be such high expectations, and consumers would grasp the point a lot better.
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These will always be a niche device at best used by institutions that require something resembling a human's signature (doctors, banks (but not for long), etc).
If they want to develop the 'next thing', create the portable keyboard computer that can be effectively used where ever you are and regardless of your physical position. The palm fold out keyboards are neat but require a 'calm' spot to operate with.
Tablets. Yeah, right. Why not just a chisel and hammer.
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underpowered
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At this point, I'd be prepared to get something that was a little low on the CPU department -- "only" a few hundered megahertz -- given that most apps don't use that much power. But I can't give up the keyboard.
If I were to buy a laptop today, I could get a combo one, or I could get a normal laptop that has a better LCD screen and a faster CPU for less. The math is pretty simple after that, unfortunately. And the combo tablet PCs don't have the expected long battery life.
None of the killer apps for the tablet PC have shown up quite yet, which is really to bad. I think most of them involve drawing stuff and new ways to interact, not just repackaging existing stuff with a crappy psuedo-keyboard and handwriting recognition.
I'm still a believer that a computer needs to be as easy to use as a tablet of paper. But that doesn't mean that a computer should be limited by the constraints of a piece of paper -- it needs to offer all of the major positive attributes of the old technology, not have any particularly obnoxious failings, and should offer a new set of powerful features.
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