Slate PC’s in 2011
Posted by sachit patel on April 06, 2011 (0 Comments)
There’s no doubt that 2011 is going to be the year of the Slate PC. In 2010, the industry played catch-up after Apple’s highly successful launch of the iPad the previous summer and, by the time Apple released iPad 2 in autumn last year, much of its advantage had been lost. The other breakthrough product which saw its lead slip during 2010 was Amazon’s Kindle reader, whose limited functions have left it at a disadvantage in competing with more multi-purpose devices. The reader function of slate PCs is going to become more significant here, with 2011 also predicted to be the year that sales of e-books overtake those of hard copies.
All this means the pundits have been outdoing themselves in predictions for 2011. Global predictions are that at least 70 different tablet PCs will be released and tens of millions sold. What’s certain is that we’re going to see a head-on battle between Intel and Arm for dominance of the mobile chipset market.
The real war, however, is likely to be among operating systems. While Apple seems content to rest on its early laurels, Google is aggressively pushing its Android ecosystem, which has already gained wide acceptance. Samsung alone claims it will ship ten million of its Galaxy Tabs this year.
Microsoft has missed the boat and won’t release its mobile OS until 2012, but that still leaves the upcoming Palmpad which sees itself snapping at the heels of Android. It’s pretty certain that the other four players on this year’s market are going to be also-rans.