Consider the humble clipboard. It is not as capable as a three-ring binder, has nowhere near the capacity of the file drawer at your desk, and isn’t as portable as a pocket-sized memo pad. And yet the clipboard persists, because it’s the best solution to a particular group of tasks.
I don’t understand the thought process of people who should know better who insist that tablets are a passing fad. Do they really think their potential customers are simply stupid? That the tens of millions of people who bought tablets, use them daily, and wax rhapsodic about them are going to wake up one day and realize they were wrong?
Tablets aren’t going to replace laptops, just as laptops didn’t replace desktops and desktops didn’t replace mainframes (though they’re mostly called “server farms” now). Too many companies will try to jump on the bandwagon, and many of them will fail, just as a lot of companies made bad bets in the early days of personal computers. But the combination of a tablet form factor and a touch interface is the right tool for a lot of jobs, and it isn’t going to go away any time soon.
Yep. That said, I do think the current crop of 10” tablets *is* a fad. They are a bit too large to be truly portable without some sort of carrier when not in use.
I figure that it’ll settle out at maybe a 7-8 inch size.
MSFT wouldn't look so stupid if they stopped pretending that we are.