Tablet PCs bombing, not booming

RESEARCH GROUP Canalys reported that the market for Tablet PCs is "far from booming" with notebooks outselling the devices by a factor of 100 to one.

And, said Mike Welch, a VP at the research company: "The ratio is not decreasing". He said that while there is a clear demand for mobile machines in sales of notebooks, hand helds and smart phones, the Tablet PC is not "riding that wave".

That's particularly the case outside the USA, said Welch, where country specific vertical applications are more fragmented.

Canalys said that HP was the market leader for Tablet PCs in Q2, but Acer, Fujitsu Siemens and Toshiba are outpacing it in growth.

Fujitsu Siemens, said Canalys, is the only company to offer "pure slate devices" as well as convertible systems with built in keyboards. Our first device at school in the 1950s was a pure slate device. Made of slate.

It has many years of pen computing experience behind it.

Fujitsu Siemens is the only company to show year on year growth in the second quarter of 11 per cent, in a market that declined 45%, the firm said.

The distribution and dealer channel showed two fifths thought lower prices would help boost sales of Tablet PCs, while a third demanded targeted applications for the machines.

Canalys thinks it's encouraging that only 12 per cent of the channel people surveyed thought Tablet PCs would fail outright.

The extra benefits do not appear to outweigh the price premiums, the channel thinks. µ

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