14 DAY TRIAL // Tablets have only been the subject of scrutiny for about a couple of months, but they already seem to have almost made their own niche market, even having drawn the attention of the watchful gaze of analysts. As such, forecasts dealing with what kind of tablets would come and go, and what content they would run and so on, were inevitable. Now, the inevitable seems to have finally come to pass, as IMS Research looked into what operating systems would be featured on this year's and future slate PCs.
Obviously, for now, at the top of the list is the Apple OS, featured on the iPad, one of the few slates currently selling (the better known other being the unlucky JooJoo). Naturally, Apple's tablet is expected to have the biggest market share this year, and probably over the next years as well. Still, Google's Android OS is expected to perform quite admirably, with a market share of 24% predicted for the ongoing year. This is significant, considering that most Android tablets have yet to start out, and are still a way off from becoming available. Windows 7 is also expected to score a decent 10% this year, a figure that should grow later on.
IMS considers that the popularity of tablets, regardless of their current hype, will soon come to depend on not just the hardware, but also on the content and interface. The iPad already has Apple's iTunes, but most competing devices currently lack an application store of their own. IMS also expects popularity to be affected by subsidization.
“The user interface and content that a tablet supplier brings to the table will likely influence purchase decisions just as much as hardware requirements. Suppliers are realizing the importance of content and service and many are turning to the Android ecosystem to be able to offer the complete user experience and compete with Apple’s offering,” Anna Hunt, an analyst with IMS Research, said.
“Right now many of the applications specifically designed for the iPad platform, which are starting to hit the iTunes App Store, are actually more expensive than apps for the iPhone OS platform. This leaves an opportunity for suppliers that can offer a tablet solution that is overall more price competitive,” Ms. Hunt added.
The best news for keyboardless PC fans will likely be the prediction that, over the next two years, tablets without word-processing software but with multimedia and web capabilities will cost under $200, which should serve to further encourage market-share growth.
“Over the next couple of years, we can expect a variety of tablet models that may not be able to run word processing software, but will offer a variety of web-based and multimedia applications for under $200 to the end user,” the analyst concluded.