You may remember back in 2001 when then Microsoft head Bill Gates prophesized about the future of tablets at the Comdex show in Las Vegas. Just to refresh your memory, here is what he said:
"So next year a lot of people in the audience, I hope, will be taking their notes with those Tablet PCs." He later added that, "It's a PC that is virtually without limits and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America."
Critics were quick to ridicule, though some waited the full five years before doing so. Thanks to the eternal archive that is the internet, here are a few comments on that prediction:
Oracle of Redmond? Gates always gets prime CES keynote spot, but his predictions are often off (MSNBC, 1/4/2008 )
"Gates didn't come close. IDC counted 3.3 million Tablet sales worldwide in 2007, just 1.2 percent of all PCs."
Software Notebook: How does Gates shape up as a seer? (SeattlePI 5/20/2007)
"The use of the phrase "I hope" makes this one more aspirational than predictive, but any way you slice it, Gates was overestimating the market for the pen-based computers. Microsoft has tried to boost usage, most recently by incorporating Tablet PC features into advanced Windows Vista versions, but the overall growth in the adoption of tablet functions hasn't been what the company originally hoped. Even at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles last week, most of the hardware and technology experts in attendance were pecking away at their keyboards, not scribbling on their screens in digital ink."
Microsoft's Gates: I still believe in Tablet PC (ITworld 6/27/2005)
"It's now a little over three and a half years into the time period he set and to-date Tablet PC has managed to do only marginally better than the now defunct trade show. A handful of vendors market Tablet PCs, but specialist markets like health care account for a large percentage of sales. Other users and those in business have yet to take to the form-factor in a big way."
Tablet PCs: Doomed from the start? (Technical Conclusions 3/1/2007)
"Does 1.5% sales percentage sound like a success or even remotely resembling Bill Gates’ prediction? No? Well, it gets worse. The 1.5% figure was just a percentage of Tablet PCs with regards to all “notebook” sales. This puts the total Tablet PC sales well under 1% overall. Worse yet, even that number is artificially high. Tablet PCs now come in different formats. The Tablet PC form that Bill Gates was specifically referring to is called a “slate tablet”. Since the introduction of the Tablet PC, it’s clear that this form is popular to nobody other than Bill Gates."
"People make bold predictions all the time of what will happen 5 years from now. Since nobody really knows the future, it’s easy to take these predictions with a grain of salt. However, when someone is going to write a book about “The Road Ahead” as if they are some sort of visionary, they sort of deserve a fair dose of criticism for being wrong."
Tablet PC Walks Through the Gates (Wired 11/7/2002)
"I'm not going to drag around a six-pound computer to scribble down addresses and phone numbers," said Keith Markham, a reporter from Ontario, Canada. "My PDA annoys the hell out of me, but it fits in my pocket. I suspect the Tablet will annoy me just as much, and will also annoy me further when I have to lug its bulky butt around town."
And then there are Steve Jobs comments on the whole issue, from back in 2007, described in
an article from the Gaurdian:
"First, he said, tablet computers were not a big enough market for Apple to spend its limited resources chasing. And even if the market grew, it would not reach a size to be of interest. The form factor was all wrong. Apple was more interested in defining markets than trying to catch other companies that were busy trying to create a market for questionable products."
So why do I bring all this up? Not because I want to rip Jobs or the iPad, but instead because I think Gates deserves some credit. Sure, his timeline was off, but the overall prediction is turning in to a reality. And that reality is in stark contrast to what Jobs said in '07. The idea was there in '01, but the technology wasn't. Now with multi-touch, capacitive touch, better and smaller batteries, and faster processors, the idea of almost a decade ago is showing its merit.
As for me, I like the iPad. However I'm not sold on getting one yet. I see it as a great tool for travel, as both an entertainment device and a way to keep tabs on the office. However most of my travel is for work, so I would need a more productive device for when I get where I'm going. That's why I'm keeping a sharp eye on things like the HP slate and the recently announced Dell hybrid Duo tablet. Windows 7 based tablets allow for the flexibility of business-related tasks while leveraging the emerging Windows Phone 7 marketplace for fun entertainment apps. And with the Dell's keyboard, there's no need to carry two devices.
Here's a peek at that hardware: