Welcome to the year of the tablet. Again.
Last year was supposed to be the year manufacturers would wow
consumers with offerings of all sorts of tablet computers. Steven A.
Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, took the stage in January at the
International Consumer Electronics Show, the industry's premier trade
show, and displayed three devices that he said would be on sale in the
months ahead. Dozens of smaller companies laid out their own tablet
plans at the show.
But few of these promises came to fruition; none of Microsoft's tablets ever showed up in stores.
Instead, in April, Apple's iPad came out. And the year became the Year of the iPad.
This year, manufacturers are promising it will be different, saying
that after the success of the iPad, they have learned a lot about what
consumers want in a tablet.
"We could have done this a year ago and rushed it out, but it
wouldn't have had the right features," said Phil Osako, director of
product marketing at Toshiba, which is introducing a new tablet at this
year's show, which begins Thursday in Las Vegas.
Perhaps the most important feature is the ability to watch
high-quality video, say industry analysts, pointing to market research
showing that, above all, consumers want to use tablets for all kinds of
media consumption -- watching films, looking at and sharing photographs,
playing games.
"Apple competitors' first instinct was to build a cheaper device and
put a cheaper processor in it," said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with
Forrester Research, a market research firm. "The problem with that is
that it wouldn't have been as good for the video screens."
At this year's show, Research In Motion and Hewlett-Packard are
expected to show off tablet computers, while scheduled appearances by
executives at Motorola and Microsoft are widely thought to be coming-out
parties for their company's devices.
Mr. Ballmer is to give the keynote address in Las Vegas on Wednesday,
the eve of the show; some analysts and bloggers have described this as a
do-over of last year.
And on the show floor this year, manufacturers whose primary
expertise rests in cellular phones, personal computers and even
televisions are planning to display their first forays into the tablet
market.
At the same time, industry analysts say demand for these devices is
poised to spike. More than 24 million tablet computers are projected to
be sold in the United States this year, up from 10.3 million in 2010,
according to Forrester. IDC, another research firm, expects to see 42
million tablet sales worldwide in 2011.
As of October, Apple had sold 7.46 million iPads worldwide, according
to the company's last reported figures. It had virtually no competitors
all year, until the Samsung Galaxy Tab became available in November.
Samsung says it has sold 1.5 million Galaxy Tabs since then.
How do the competitors catch up?
Many companies are withholding the specifics of their tablets until
they are formally introduced. But those who have discussed their plans
say they will both offer specific features that the iPad is lacking, and
undercut their competitors on price.
Mr. Osako from Toshiba said Apple's experience over the last year has
helped his company by creating demand for tablets while Toshiba
fine-tuned its plans. Toshiba's tablet, which will run on Google's
Android operating system, resembles an iPad with a grippy rubberized
backing. The company has incorporated features it has developed for its
laptops, like stereo speakers and a screen that adjusts in contrast
depending on the lighting. Both of those features will make it more
comfortable for consumers to watch video.
Mr. Osako also listed features unavailable on the iPad, like front-
and back-facing cameras, ports for H.D.M.I. hookups and SIM cards, and
the ability to run Adobe Flash.
"We really view this as the next revolution," he said.
Other companies are looking to distinguish themselves by price.
Enspert, a Korean manufacturer that is already selling tablets in Korea,
is planning to introduce an Android tablet with a seven-inch screen for
under $350 at the show, and sell it in the United States this year. By
the end of the summer, the tablet, the Identity Tab, will also be
available with a data plan through a major wireless carrier for about
$100, Bobby Cha, the company's chief marketing officer, said in a
telephone interview.
Mr. Cha said technology consumers pay a heavy premium for familiar
brand names, creating opportunity for little-known companies with
similar products.
"The market is open to everybody, so we know where everybody stands,"
he said. "Apple changed the market dynamics, but we're going to occupy a
price point that is much more appealing to the American mass-market
customer."
Creating similar products for much lower prices may be difficult
because the iPad has conditioned customers to expect a device that is
both relatively light and powerful enough to display high-quality media,
said Mark Donovan, an analyst with comScore, a market research
organization. But he also said that success would be determined largely
based on the software that the devices run, and not only on the number
of features that manufacturers can pack into the hardware.
The tablet market is shaping up to resemble the smartphone market, in
which a few companies, like Apple, Research In Motion and Microsoft,
design their own operating systems, while many others design hardware
that runs on Google's Android operating system.
Perhaps the companies best positioned to succeed are those that make
cellphones, several analysts who follow the market said. Handset makers
already have relationships with wireless carriers, which can hide the
full price of devices by subsidizing them when consumers also purchase
data plans.
Many manufacturers are focusing solely on creating hardware that will
run on Google's Android operating system. In part, companies were
delayed last year because they were waiting for updated versions of
Android that would be designed specifically for tablet computers. That
wait seems to be over.
Devices can already run Android 2.3, known as Gingerbread, and
Android 3.0, known as Honeycomb, is scheduled to be available this year.
Andy Rubin, vice president for engineering at Google, showed a
prototype of a Motorola tablet running the operating system at a
conference in December.
Apple's experience with the iPad has also shown that consumers place a
high value on the number and quality of apps. And so no matter how good
tablets look in Las Vegas at the electronics show, the competition will
continue as developers begin to write apps for the various devices.
"You can build these devices, which is great, but it's no longer
enough to say, 'O.K., you have the Internet,' " said Mr. Donovan of
comScore. "You need developers."
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
First published on January 4, 2011 at 12:00 am
