BlackBerry announced in September the development of its tablet PC, PlayBook, putting an end to rumors that the smartphone-maker was one of the latest contenders to enter the market competing against Apple’s iPad. Already, HP, Samsung and Dell, among others, have tossed their hat into the ring in an effort to unseat the iPad from its reign. In the meantime, makers of netbooks — the miniature versions of laptop PCs — are looking to cut prices so they can keep an edge on the market as consumers jump ship.
The PlayBook, which would run on a BlackBerry operating system and sport 1 GB of RAM, will have 3G access through the existing service plans of BlackBerry smartphones. In addition to many of the usual BlackBerry phone features, it will have an HD camera, its own e-book app (through the e-book retailer Kobo) and Flash compatibility. At 1 GB of RAM and with 1 GHz dual-core processor, the tablet promises to seamlessly work with its smartphone brothers so owners can use the two interchangeably.
No release date or price has been given as of mid-October for the PlayBook, with some reviewers betting on a release for early 2011. Word also on the street is that its rumored competitor, the HP Slate, would be on the market as early as November and cost under $600. The Slate will run on Microsoft’s Windows 7 technology, and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer promised the Slate would be available in time for holiday shopping.
Another HP tablet, Palmpad, will be out sometimes early next year and will use the Palm operating system. Earlier this year, HP already started selling a “convertible tablet,” a tablet-netbook hybrid called Touchsmart tm2t with a price tag closer to lower-end laptops. That didn’t help it gain marketshare however — reports said that PC shipments by the company in the third quarter were flat from a year ago, while HP lost two percentage point of its market share.
The story was no better for Dell, which reported lower numbers than projected during third quarter. It remains to be seen how it does with its tablet, Android-powered Dell Streak, which has been available since August.
Apple, on the other hand, has been laughing all the way to the bank. Fourth quarter results announced Oct. 18 showed the company posted a record $20.34 billion in revenues ($4.31 billion net profit), compared to $12.21 billion ($2.53 billion net) a year ago. Apple’s stock price topped $300 and it’s now the second most valuable company in America behind Exxon Mobil.
As consumers are catching up to the tablet craze, makers of netbooks are seeing their sales slipping. Best Buy’s CEO was even quoted on the company’s website earlier this year as saying that half of the retailer’s netbook sales were being cannibalized by tablets. Trying to keep up, netbook maker Acer announced a price drop recently, and its CEO acknowledged he didn’t expect to see the devices gain new market share next year.
Just as with the wildly popular iPhones, catching up to Apple’s iPad will not be easy. The company started selling the devices in the third quarter, and sold 7.46 million of them during Q3-Q4, surpassing sales of its Macs (a total of 7.36 million sold during the same period). And it doesn’t hurt that both AT& T and Verizon Wireless started selling the Apple devices at its wireless stores at the end of October (it’s rumored Verizon will also add the iPhone to its lineup early next year).
Forget the “iPad killer” idea. Some industry watchers go as far as to say tablet computers — iPads or otherwise — will replace computers, period, as the device of choice, at least for the leisure market. Gartner, a leading information technology research and advisory company, forecasted in October that tablet sales will grow by 181 percent in 2011, to nearly 55 million. The forecast expected the tablet to further chew into the market for netbooks, e-readers, hand-held games and media players, and top 208 million in unit sales by 2014.
Analyst Caroline Milanesi, who’s worked for Gartner for a decade, wrote in a blog following the announcement: “Media tablets have much more in common with a smartphone than a PC. The usage model is closer to what consumers do with a smartphone while on the go than what they do on a PC when they are at their desk. It is about running applications, playing games, watching video content, reading books and magazines, surfing the web, updating your status on your social network of choice and checking email. If you can do all of this without having to take 5 minutes to boot up, without having to look for a power outlet after a couple of hours cause [sic] battery life is nice and long [sic] and with a user interface that allows you to easily get to what you need why would you not buy a media tablet?”
