The tablet PC market in the UK is dead. The big retailers like PC World here
don't even sell any tablet PCs. Go into most companies and you won't see any
tablets. I work in one of the UKs biggest banks and I have seen exactly one
tablet PC here. Guess who had it - the on site Microsoft representative.

To make this product mainstream I think the size and weight has to come
down. At the moment this is a geek product. No-one wants to walk around
carrying something the size and weight of an LCD TV.

I think tablets need to become filofax size and replace the Pocket PC
market. When are we going to see 7-8 inch tablets? The sony u750p is part
way there but the sony's screen at 6 inches is just that little bit too
small. Apart from that its a great product.

I'm expecting replies saying paper size screen is best for writing. Yes for
some people, especially IT companies where its cool to walk around with a
tablet. But to make these mainstream something has to change, and I think its
the size. 7, 8, even 9 inches, its all about the size. The products need to
look a lot cooler before people will use them in a mainstream way.

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/...bletpc2005.asp

me wrote:
> The tablet PC market in the UK is dead. The big retailers like PC World here
> don't even sell any tablet PCs. Go into most companies and you won't see any
> tablets. I work in one of the UKs biggest banks and I have seen exactly one
> tablet PC here. Guess who had it - the on site Microsoft representative.
>
> To make this product mainstream I think the size and weight has to come
> down.

Since it's an invisible/intangible product most places outside the US at
the moment, I don't think weight needs to come down for a market to
exist (although that will come down as regular laptop sizes decrease -
there's no magic that you can do just for tablets).

None of my media/tech-savvy friends in the UK have ever seen a real
Tablet and as far as they're concerned it has yet to be released there.
Ditto here in Australia. Although over a million tablets have been sold,
I don't see Microsoft getting behind it in any non-US markets. Even
folks in the US complain about the drab advertising.

Asia is pretty hot, Mike. A couple of the OEMs sell only in those markets.
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone


"Mike Williams [MVP]" <mikew@Nospam.mvps.org> wrote in message
news:422A75FE.1050200@Nospam.mvps.org...
> me wrote:
>> The tablet PC market in the UK is dead. The big retailers like PC World
>> here don't even sell any tablet PCs. Go into most companies and you won't
>> see any tablets. I work in one of the UKs biggest banks and I have seen
>> exactly one tablet PC here. Guess who had it - the on site Microsoft
>> representative.
>>
>> To make this product mainstream I think the size and weight has to come
>> down.
>
> Since it's an invisible/intangible product most places outside the US at
> the moment, I don't think weight needs to come down for a market to exist
> (although that will come down as regular laptop sizes decrease - there's
> no magic that you can do just for tablets).
>
> None of my media/tech-savvy friends in the UK have ever seen a real Tablet
> and as far as they're concerned it has yet to be released there. Ditto
> here in Australia. Although over a million tablets have been sold, I don't
> see Microsoft getting behind it in any non-US markets. Even folks in the
> US complain about the drab advertising.

James Kendrick and I have both enunciated this view:
http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkonther...tapped_ta.html
http://www.segal.org/tablet/index.html
However, it is a minority view among people who already have the laptop size
Tablet PCs. Senior people in the Tablet PC hardware and software business
reflect the preferences of these existing customers. However, if you talk
to potential users such as doctors they say they would only put up with the
inconveniences of a Tablet PC if they could put it in a pocket, and thus
gain the huge convenience of continuous access to a real computer.

The obvious answer is a variety of sizes of Tablet PCs. Sooner or later
someone will produce a small one and we will get to test our predictions.
In the meantime, it seems like a chapter out of Clay Christensen's book "The
Innovator's Dilemma".

"me" <me@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4F41E9EC-6FC1-4141-81EF-81867C9B726C@microsoft.com...
> To make this product mainstream I think the size and weight has to come
> down. At the moment this is a geek product. No-one wants to walk around
> carrying something the size and weight of an LCD TV.
>
> I think tablets need to become filofax size and replace the Pocket PC
> market. When are we going to see 7-8 inch tablets? The sony u750p is part
> way there but the sony's screen at 6 inches is just that little bit too
> small. Apart from that its a great product.

Chris H. wrote:
> Asia is pretty hot, Mike. A couple of the OEMs sell only in those markets.

I would say that's due to OEM advertising rather than Microsoft. In two
years I've seen 2 tablets in Australian stores (neither with a pen), one
ad (Toshiba) and *nothing* from Microsoft. I just searched my archive of
product flashes from the local subsidiary from the last 18 months and
found 2 footnoted references to Tablets...and that's in a technology
bellwether country that has some of Microsoft's very largest global
accounts.

From all accounts the situation in Europe is not much different: no
store presence and little advertising.

Mickey Segal wrote:
> James Kendrick and I have both enunciated this view:
> http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkonther...tapped_ta.html
> http://www.segal.org/tablet/index.html
> However, it is a minority view among people who already have the laptop size
> Tablet PCs. Senior people in the Tablet PC hardware and software business
> reflect the preferences of these existing customers. However, if you talk
> to potential users such as doctors they say they would only put up with the
> inconveniences of a Tablet PC if they could put it in a pocket, and thus
> gain the huge convenience of continuous access to a real computer.
>
> The obvious answer is a variety of sizes of Tablet PCs. Sooner or later
> someone will produce a small one and we will get to test our predictions.
> In the meantime, it seems like a chapter out of Clay Christensen's book "The
> Innovator's Dilemma".

I agree that the mini-Tablet is a good thing and it will surely come.
I'd like to quickly dock a mini to a larger screen or key-station for
intense reading. I can see a future for internet cafes providing such
facilities for the widely roaming user, especially in areas where
wireless access is not easily available.

For the present though, there is a vast audience of laptop/pc users who
could profit from direct/ink input on a larger screen device. These are
the professionals and creative types who only occasionally roam from
their office, not to mention the larger audience of surfers and readers
who want a home or office-based device. This includes the majority of
doctors and clinical staff who are not in hospitals doing rounds.

I didn't say it was Microsoft's advertising, Mike. There are certain
segments of the market which deal only with Asia, and that's where they are
pointed. A couple of them, with really "wow" Tablets aren't in the U.S.
market at all because they don't have the distribution structure here.
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone


"Mike Williams [MVP]" <mikew@Nospam.mvps.org> wrote in message
news:422A8110.1040608@Nospam.mvps.org...
> Chris H. wrote:
>> Asia is pretty hot, Mike. A couple of the OEMs sell only in those
>> markets.
>
> I would say that's due to OEM advertising rather than Microsoft. In two
> years I've seen 2 tablets in Australian stores (neither with a pen), one
> ad (Toshiba) and *nothing* from Microsoft. I just searched my archive of
> product flashes from the local subsidiary from the last 18 months and
> found 2 footnoted references to Tablets...and that's in a technology
> bellwether country that has some of Microsoft's very largest global
> accounts.
>
> From all accounts the situation in Europe is not much different: no store
> presence and little advertising.
>

"Mike Williams [MVP]" <mikew@Nospam.mvps.org> wrote in message
news:422A75FE.1050200@Nospam.mvps.org...
> me wrote:
>> The tablet PC market in the UK is dead. The big retailers like PC World
>> here don't even sell any tablet PCs. Go into most companies and you won't
>> see any tablets. I work in one of the UKs biggest banks and I have seen
>> exactly one tablet PC here. Guess who had it - the on site Microsoft
>> representative.
>>
>> To make this product mainstream I think the size and weight has to come
>> down.
>
> Since it's an invisible/intangible product most places outside the US at
> the moment, I don't think weight needs to come down for a market to exist
> (although that will come down as regular laptop sizes decrease - there's
> no magic that you can do just for tablets).
>
> None of my media/tech-savvy friends in the UK have ever seen a real Tablet
> and as far as they're concerned it has yet to be released there. Ditto
> here in Australia. Although over a million tablets have been sold, I don't
> see Microsoft getting behind it in any non-US markets. Even folks in the
> US complain about the drab advertising.

I see some Toshiba advertising on IT magazines here n New Zealand. I
actually bought my M200 in the US last year because it was much more
expensive here (and Tablets are already more expensive than laptops anyway).

--
Mauricio Freitas, Microsoft MVP Mobile Devices
http://www.geekzone.co.nz
Bluetooth guides: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=449
Geekzone Software Store for Pocket PC and Smartphone:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/store

"Mike Williams [MVP]" wrote:

> I agree that the mini-Tablet is a good thing and it will surely come.
> I'd like to quickly dock a mini to a larger screen or key-station for
> intense reading.
>
> For the present though, there is a vast audience of laptop/pc users who
> could profit from direct/ink input on a larger screen device. These are
> the professionals and creative types who only occasionally roam from
> their office, not to mention the larger audience of surfers and readers
> who want a home or office-based device. This includes the majority of
> doctors and clinical staff who are not in hospitals doing rounds.

I think most people are mobile to some extent, even if its attending
company meetings or switching between the office and home working.

I don't think its inking that is the best selling point for tablet, I think
its inking plus not having to carry a full size keyboard around with you ie
truely portable tablets

If you look at the portable and tablet market as a whole I think its
segmenting like this
1. "On the go" People who want access to email and calendar on the move -
answer:Blackberry/Smartphone (my guess would be this would be the largest
market say 30-50 Million people). The trends in this market confirm to me
that size is important
2. "Handwriters" People who want to be able to handwrite at their desk - I
think this is a tiny market of mainly geeks and creative types. I'd be
interested if anyone was some statistics for the size of this market. This
seems to be the market microsoft is targetting and its small in my view. (is
this segment really more than say 2-3 Million people?)
3. "Mobile workers". People who need more power than a Blackberry and need
windows applications on the move - sales forces, warehouse staff, doctors,
management consultants, market research people (market research is huge
untapped market for tablet I believe) and poeple who "hot desk".

The third market I believe is untapped currently. Think of the number of
people who had filofaxs, how bulky they where, and what we can do now to get
something far more powerful into their jacket pockets and suitcases/bags

I think you're missing a lot of what is happening with Tablet PCs. Perhaps
a viewing of the "case studies" would expand your perception:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/t...s/default.mspx

There is a large segment of users among students - high school or
college/university - and their instructors. Students use programs like
OneNote and GoBinder to track their classes, note-taking, etc., including
voice recordings of lectures while making notes.

Tablet PCs are not just a "geek" thing, but productive computers employed a
wide spectrum of users from lawyers, doctors and police officers to
warehousemen for inventory control, Real Estate agents, insurance claims
adjustors, and artists and writers. 8-)
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone


"me" <me@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:EC7CB582-6881-4B9A-9884-12063E0B2AEF@microsoft.com...
>
> I think most people are mobile to some extent, even if its attending
> company meetings or switching between the office and home working.
>
> I don't think its inking that is the best selling point for tablet, I
> think
> its inking plus not having to carry a full size keyboard around with you
> ie
> truely portable tablets
>
> If you look at the portable and tablet market as a whole I think its
> segmenting like this
> 1. "On the go" People who want access to email and calendar on the move -
> answer:Blackberry/Smartphone (my guess would be this would be the largest
> market say 30-50 Million people). The trends in this market confirm to me
> that size is important
> 2. "Handwriters" People who want to be able to handwrite at their desk -
> I
> think this is a tiny market of mainly geeks and creative types. I'd be
> interested if anyone was some statistics for the size of this market. This
> seems to be the market microsoft is targetting and its small in my view.
> (is
> this segment really more than say 2-3 Million people?)
> 3. "Mobile workers". People who need more power than a Blackberry and need
> windows applications on the move - sales forces, warehouse staff, doctors,
> management consultants, market research people (market research is huge
> untapped market for tablet I believe) and poeple who "hot desk".
>
> The third market I believe is untapped currently. Think of the number of
> people who had filofaxs, how bulky they where, and what we can do now to
> get
> something far more powerful into their jacket pockets and suitcases/bags

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 08:27:03 -0800, "me" <me@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:

>2. "Handwriters" People who want to be able to handwrite at their desk - I
>think this is a tiny market of mainly geeks and creative types.

Plus those like me, who have a disability which makes it impossible or
inadvisable to type. (My ability to use a stylus is also limited, and
I rely on speech recognition software for most of my computer work,
but I believe that for editing existing text, handwriting recognition
would be a much more effective tool.)

I won't speculate on how large the market for desktop handwriting
recognition is, but speech recognition software is an analogous
product that is commercially viable despite having captured only a
small proportion of computer users. I suspect that if handwriting
recognition gained a comparable following, its total number of users
would increase substantially.

As I consider the potential usefulness to me of a tablet PC, its
greatest single limitation is the apparent lack of tools for
integrating it into my desktop environment.

My email address is llm040903 at earthlink dot net.

"Jonathan Sachs" wrote:
>
> Plus those like me, who have a disability which makes it impossible or
> inadvisable to type. (My ability to use a stylus is also limited, and
> I rely on speech recognition software for most of my computer work,
> but I believe that for editing existing text, handwriting recognition
> would be a much more effective tool.)
>

> As I consider the potential usefulness to me of a tablet PC, its
> greatest single limitation is the apparent lack of tools for
> integrating it into my desktop environment.
>
> My email address is llm040903 at earthlink dot net.
>
Jonathan

Re integrating into desktop environment. Not sure if I fully understand the
issue but is this of any use?

http://www.orangeguava.com/

http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkonther.../03/index.html

"Chris H." wrote:

> I think you're missing a lot of what is happening with Tablet PCs. Perhaps
> a viewing of the "case studies" would expand your perception:
> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/t...s/default.mspx
>
> There is a large segment of users among students - high school or
> college/university - and their instructors. Students use programs like
> OneNote and GoBinder to track their classes, note-taking, etc., including
> voice recordings of lectures while making notes.
>
> Tablet PCs are not just a "geek" thing, but productive computers employed a
> wide spectrum of users from lawyers, doctors and police officers to
> warehousemen for inventory control, Real Estate agents, insurance claims
> adjustors, and artists and writers. 8-)
> --
> Chris H.
> Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
> Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
> Associate Expert
> Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
>
Chris,
I'm aware of adoption especially in areas of hospitals and students.

But here in the UK adoption of tablet is a tiny percentage.

Most places in UK don't even sell them. So we're relying on someone brave in
a corporation to trial their use.

I'm basically coming at it from Mickey's point of view, great technology,
great potential use but to get widespread adoption the obvious answer is a
variety of sizes of Tablet PCs rather than the wall to wall 12 inches that we
seen to have at the moment.

Think filofax sort of size, 8 inches, slate, 30 GB, separate keypad,
lightweight. That ideas got to have potential in the market surely? If sony
can do it to the playstation someone must be able to do it with the tablet OS?

Personally, I wouldn't want a small-screened Tablet PC. The original Acers
at just over 10 inches are pretty much pushing it in my opinion. As I've
suggested previously, take a piece of paper and map out a five-inch screen
since that seems to be a target of affection for some people, and then try
writing a full sentence on it. With a 10.4" or larger screen, you can fully
view sentences or even paragraphs in the Tablet Input Panel. What good is a
screen where you only see a few words? Perhaps a self-scrolling method
would work, but I like to see entire sentences on the screen as I'm writing,
and I cannot see programs like OneNote or GoBinder in use by students taking
notes in class on a screen that small.

How would you work creating a PowerPoint presentation, work on a spreadsheet
or a Publisher brochure when you can't fully view everything?
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone


"me" <me@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:04B8F6ED-D6BD-4821-BC52-582A68BAB3C1@microsoft.com...
>
>
> "Chris H." wrote:
>
>> I think you're missing a lot of what is happening with Tablet PCs.
>> Perhaps
>> a viewing of the "case studies" would expand your perception:
>> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/t...s/default.mspx
>>
>> There is a large segment of users among students - high school or
>> college/university - and their instructors. Students use programs like
>> OneNote and GoBinder to track their classes, note-taking, etc., including
>> voice recordings of lectures while making notes.
>>
>> Tablet PCs are not just a "geek" thing, but productive computers employed
>> a
>> wide spectrum of users from lawyers, doctors and police officers to
>> warehousemen for inventory control, Real Estate agents, insurance claims
>> adjustors, and artists and writers. 8-)
>> --
>> Chris H.
>> Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
>> Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
>> Associate Expert
>> Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
>>
> Chris,
> I'm aware of adoption especially in areas of hospitals and students.
>
> But here in the UK adoption of tablet is a tiny percentage.
>
> Most places in UK don't even sell them. So we're relying on someone brave
> in
> a corporation to trial their use.
>
> I'm basically coming at it from Mickey's point of view, great technology,
> great potential use but to get widespread adoption the obvious answer is a
> variety of sizes of Tablet PCs rather than the wall to wall 12 inches that
> we
> seen to have at the moment.
>
> Think filofax sort of size, 8 inches, slate, 30 GB, separate keypad,
> lightweight. That ideas got to have potential in the market surely? If
> sony
> can do it to the playstation someone must be able to do it with the tablet
> OS?

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 10:23:02 -0800, "me" <me@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:

>> As I consider the potential usefulness to me of a tablet PC, its
>> greatest single limitation is the apparent lack of tools for
>> integrating it into my desktop environment.
>
>Re integrating into desktop environment. Not sure if I fully understand the
>issue but is this of any use?
>
>http://www.orangeguava.com/
>http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkonther.../03/index.html

I don't think so. I do all sorts of things on my desktop computer that
would be either pointless or dispensable on a mobile tablet PC, such
as photo editing, printing postage, working on one document while
referring to several others, and debugging application software. A
desktop computer offers numerous resources for such activities that
the tablet does not, notably the ability to support multiple
high-resolution displays. Unless I could integrate the tablet PC more
or less seamlessly into the desktop environment, I could not use it
effectively for desktop work.

(The desktop computer offers several other capabilities that are
important to me, such as large, fast hard disks, bus slots, and
multiple USB connectors. I recognize that only a tiny set of power
users will demand all of these features, but I believe that a large
proportion of all users would value at least one of them. The 1024x768
display has disappeared from desktop computers, and increasingly from
laptops, for a good reason.)

What I envision is a software product that makes the tablet PC look to
the desktop computer like just another monitor in a multi-monitor
system, except that the parts of the display that are on the tablet PC
may be edited with the stylus.

Correct me if I'm wrong; I did not pursue either of those links to the
point of finding all the technical details about the product, but it
doesn't appear to me that either one is pushing the envelope in that
direction.

A plain old network connection between the tablet PC and the desktop
is the closest approach to what I need that I have seen, but it's not
very close. To take a very simple example, suppose I'm editing
document A on the tablet while I study document B on another display,
and I want to swap them. I need to be able to drag document A up, drag
document B down, and continue working. If the two computers are
networked, I must instead close each document on its respective
computer (using different pointing devices and gestures), then reopen
each one on the other computer and relocate the part I was working
with. A sequence of two gestures is replaced by a series of operations
that probably takes the better part of the minute. Furthermore, if
either document was maintaining unsavable state information (such as
the status of a software development system's debugging session), it
is lost. In any case my train of thought is broken, and the whole
process becomes disruptive rather than helpful.

My email address is llm040903 at earthlink dot net.