Here come the imitations... Some eight months after Apple announced the iPad on January 27, 2010, and some five months after it was introduced on April 3rd, we have the inevitable latecomer imitators.
The imitators may believe that tablets are now popular, and so any tablet will sell well. But: is it the case that tablets are popular, or that it is the iPad that is popular? That's an important distinction, where getting all the factors right makes a device appealing, not that it in some family of devices.
Can tablet wannabes gain traction? In a report issued September 30, 2010, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Doug Reid says that though Apple's competitors are rushing iPad look-alikes to market, only one is available for sale and all are likely to be, in his words, "disadvantaged by unsuccessful attempts to integrate first generation tablet hardware with mobile OSes (Android 2.2/3.0, Chrome) that remain either nascent or entirely unproven relative to Apple's nearly 4-year old iOS."
Apple's long, unchallenged lead in the tablet market means that it is firmly established in the public mind, and that is a competitive advantage. If a rush of wannabees then appears in the marketplace, it has the effect of confusing those seeking a tablet, where the overwhelmed consumer is likely to give up and go with the established, known-good product from the market leader.
A conspicuous but often ignored reality in comparing competitors to Apple is that the competitors typically have a narrow market footprint. A company like HTC makes phones, and does little else. Apple is a broad-based corporation offering computers, phones, and consumer electronics in over 300 international retail stores, as well as providing ever expanding online services, plus the best customer support organization in the business world. Apple's size has allowed it to negotiate a pay-as-you-go cellular arrangement with ATT for the iPad, while competitors hobble customers with cellular service provider contracts. Apple provides a full ecosystem for its devices: a marked contrast to the "you're on your own, now" attitude of other sellers of flimsy plastic devices. Some people buy technology products in a geeky spec-based manner, but most people couldn't care less about technology unto itself: they seek an overall great "user experience", and that has been the hallmark of Apple products.
The cell phone industry bumbled around, going down the wrong road with button-laden pseudo-smartphones until Apple came up with the right concept (after extensive development work on tablet technology). MP3 players were ridiculously poorly designed, then Apple showed how to cleanly design a portable music player and provide it with an infrastructure. The computer industry utterly failed to do anything meaningful with tablet computing for years, and then Apple produced a definitive and wildly popular unit. We heard about supposed "iPod killers" from melodramatic press writers, and then pronouncements of "iPhone killers"; and now it's empty predictions of "iPad killers". All this speaks to repeatedly demonstrated inability of most companies to innovate, no matter how blatant the opportunities. Lacking imagination and initiative, most companies imitate.
In failing to plan ahead, all of the competition is not just missing out on months of sales; even more significantly, they are missing the 2010 holiday season, allowing Apple to make even greater strides as the most coveted gift of the season.
And, if you can't get anywhere on your own merits, sue your competitors.
The reality of Android is that it was designed to be a phone operating system: as Google itself has said, Android in its present form (2.2, Froyo) does not scale properly to be suitable for a tablet. (This may not prevent some who-cares manufacturers from marketing dissatisfying small tablets based upon the current Android; but whereas Google prohibits non-qualifying devices from participating in their Android Market, customers who buy into such bastardized devices will be in for a rude surprise when they go looking for apps.) When will Android be truly be ready for tablets? It was thought that Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) would be it; but Samsung has hinted that Android won't be properly optimized for tablets until a later incarnation with the codename Honeycomb. After conferring with Google, LG dropped their plans for a Froyo-based tablet named Optimus.
How bad is Android fragmentation? App developer Rovio Mobile did all they could to develop a common-denominator version of their bestselling Angry Birds app for the multitude of Android phones — and ended up with something that ran so poorly on older and lower performance devices that "severe performance issues" arose, as Rovio acknowledged. And they had to list 17 Android phones officially not supported by Angry Birds, as well as devices running a version older than 1.6 or custom ROMs. The situation was bad enough that the Rovio.com site apologized for the situation, in a November 18, 2010 blog post. Rovio had to face the realization that the Android situation makes it impossible to develop a single version of an app for that platform, and reluctanctly had to announce embarking upon a lightweight version of Angry Birds for less capable Android devices.
Does Google acknowledge deficiencies in their Android paradigm? Just look in their "Android 2.2 Compatibility Definition", where it says:
Android 2.2 includes facilities that perform certain automatic scaling and transformation operations under some circumstances, to ensure that third-party applications run reasonably well on a variety of hardware configurations.The key phrase here is "reasonably well", which is a way of saying that the Android approach is inherently compromises performance. Google went down the wrong path with their approach to an operating system and devices. That overall situation can only get worse as the device variations increase over time. Does this materially matter to Google? Doubtful. Google does not make devices upon which its software runs and sells nothing to the public. They are not interested in the quality of the end user experience. Google's mission is to serve its advertising clients, and if a raft of disparate devices does that, then they are satisfied.
Further evidence of where Android fragmentation is leading is in Google's December 2010 Android Market Client Update notice, which includes:
To make it easier for developers to distribute and manage their products, we will introduce support for device targeting based on screen sizes and densities, as well as on GL texture compression formats.
Further fragmentation is coming from phone makers eager to differentiate their handsets from others using Android. HTC has software called HTC Sense which is their own interface layer on top of Android. And as of January 2011 they have devised something called HTC Sensation which may take things further.
As of late 2010, only Apple has a demonstrated OS which is adept at running tablets (and their other hand-held devices).
Despite having bought Palm and effectively having withdrawn the Slate from public promotion for much of 2010 after an early unveiling at the January CES, HP went ahead anyway with its original intention to make the Slate a Windows 7 device. You can see a demo of its performance in at least one YouTube demo, leaked toward the end of September, 2010, ahead of formal introduction. Suffice to say that the Slate demonstrates why Windows 7 should not be put on a tablet...with imprecise finger locationing and poor responsiveness. In a word: embarrassing. With a Windows 7 tablet like this one, you also get the inevitable Windows stickers, an unenviable Ctrl+Alt+Delete button on the side, and a physical button to make a virtual keyboard appear. Ugh.
The Slate demonstrates what happens when you attempt to employ an operating system which is not suited to tablets, into a tablet. Perhaps more than anything else, this points out Microsoft's failure to have a real strategy in operating systems design, to accommodate upcoming technologies.
So, what's HP's strategy here? The Slate is likely HP's placeholder in the tablet race. They probably reasoned that they had to get something out, and with the Palm WebOS far from ready for tablets, the lingering, limping Slate would have to do. They will probably deliberately promote the Slate as a niche (enterprise) product, given its performance deficiencies.
(HP's new CEO as of September 30, 2010 is Leo Apotheker, who in February was asked to resign from his post as CEO of SAP, after seven months in that position. Replacing HP's fired CEO Mark Hurd, Apotheker disappointed analysts and shareholders in being chosen over well-qualified HP staff candidates.)
Announced September 27, 2010 at the annual Blackberry Developers Conference (DEVCON), it was presented by BlackBerry (Resarch in Motion) chief executive Mike Lazaridis, joined by the company's founder, Dan Dodge. Product placement: Lazaridis said the PlayBook would be "the first professional tablet", and Dodge added that it would be "an incredible gaming platform for publishers and the players". Screen: 7", 1024 x 600 pixels. No mention of battery life or price. The promotional video shows no actual product use — just splashy computer-generated imagery accompanied by hip music.
The positioning of the PlayBook is schizophrenic. If RiM is defining the device as an enterprise tool, then why is gaming being emphasized (the last thing executives want promoted on a supposed productivity tool). And "Play" is in the product name. Most likely, RiM is trying to appeal to both the business and home markets simultaneously, trying to imitate Apple's success in both arenas — but in a more crass manner.
Does the timing strategy make sense? RiM is doing just what Palm fatally did in 2009: Palm announced their Pre phone in January (at CES), to be available in June — which it was, just when Apple introduced their latest iPhone and eclipsed Palm. The Pre subsequently evaporated. A product announced six months before appearing is going to be old, boring news by the time it finally arrives. By March of 2011 when the PlayBook arrives in the market, Apple will have the next generation of its iPad established and other competitors will be far along.
Some commentators have been mesmerized by the PlayBook's features: a sober look is called for. What of the screen size and resolution? Contrary to its high-end ambitions, the PlayBook is not an HD display device. The minimum HD resolution (720p) requires 1280x720 pixels. The PlayBook is way short of that, which renders the promotional video rather illusory.
The device's small size may well be the result of coming to market late... A device architect may have lofty ambitions in seeking to out-do existing product designs; but ultimately the device design is limited by the parts that are available, in the quantities needed. When you go to make a device, you need to arrange far in advance for the parts needed to build it. In a touch tablet, the most difficult part to obtain in quantity is a quality capacitive display. Competitors may well scoop up manufacturing capacity for the most desirable display sizes and technologies. Apple, in particular, is way, way ahead of everyone else in tablets, with very high volume demands for large, premium tablet displays, and thus major contracts with display makers. (Apple is also the world's largest buyer of flash memory.) Other tablet makers may be left having to settle for what they can get. This may be why the PlayBook is a small 7". All the extra features added to the PlayBook (cameras, USB port, HDMI out) may be strategic, as a distraction from the inferior size.
Does tablet size matter? If you're going to be taken seriously as a tablet, you need to look like a tablet. A unit which is smaller than perceived tablet size is not going to appeal. The iPad provides an excellent size for a virtual keyboard: a 7" tablet is going to have a small, cramped virtual keyboard. The iPad has become very popular in business — not just in the running of the business, but for direct use by executives, who find it far less intrusive than a laptop at meetings. Imagine a meeting with executives having 9.7" displays in front of them: can you imagine another executive pulling out a comically small 7" tablet that he can barely see or type on? I don't think so... He'd be the butt of much chuckling. A 7" tablet would be great as a casual product ("iPad mini", anyone?), but that size doesn't cut it as a serious tablet: it's too big to fit into a pocket to be readily carried, and too small to be used in a satisfying way.
Size is very important to the device's endurance between charges, in that the larger the device, the larger the battery you can get into it. The iPad has terrific staying power because of this. A smaller device is going to have lesser capacity, and be less viable. The PlayBook's emphasis on supporting Flash can be onerous in this area.
Risks? RiM went with the QNX operating system for their tablet. This is a positive in that it frees its development from the constraints of their aging phone OS. It's a negative in that QNX is new to tablets and thus may require considerable time to mature. A further negative is that a new OS for RiM means starting from essentially zero for apps on the new tablet. A pre-defined risk is that RiM is nine months late to announcing a tablet, and it won't be ready for another six months. That can be fatally late in a very competitive technology market. In all that time, the iPad has very much caught on and becoming entrenched — not just with ordinary people, but CEOs who, as literally the highest example of RiM's enterprise market, is onerous for RiM, as in "handwriting on the wall". (CEOs are consumers of information rather than producers, where the presentation-oriented iPad is perfect; and CEOs tend to be mature people, where the larger size of the iPad provides them excellent readability. And theres a good probability that a CEO-preferred device will trickle down into the bulk of the organization.)
On Tuesday, October 5 2010, addressing an audience of students, staff and journalists at the London School of Economics, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said "You'll see new slates with Windows on them. You'll see them this Christmas." As of the end of November, there was only the HP Slate 500, being produced in only meager numbers (a few thousand), as if HP was selling a token number just to follow through on the prototype unit they had let Ballmer hold up at the January CES, so as not to totally embarrass Microsoft.
So... We are "seeing" Windows tablets before Christmas; but there are no viable Windows tablets in the marketplace. Microsoft seems resigned to this failing, and is beckoning attention away from Windows tablets to its Windows Phone 7 operating system.
Internally, Microsoft likely acknowledges that Windows is unsuitable for a tablet, and is likely working to extrapolate its Windows Phone 7 OS to tablet size, but is nevertheless accommodating its business partners who are infatuated with the idea of producing a tablet running Windows. In a case of deja vu, Steve Ballmer is scheduled to once again hold up a prospective Windows tablet at the January 2011 CES, on the first anniversary of there still being no substantive marketing of such a device. Wired has published the article 7 reasons you won't want a Windows 7 slate reminding everyone why this is still a Bad Idea.