Actually, there weren’t any explicit Tablet PC demos at DEMO. But there easily could have been. Two companies could have stood on stage with Tablets–with the products they have.
One is In The Chair. They were demonstrating an app intended for amateurs and students that want to practice playing a (single-note) instrument while following along to a video taped performance. Annotated sheet music shows where you should be in the performance and the computer listens to your playing to determine whether you’ve missed a note or are playing too fast or hitting the wrong note.
The performer watches a multi-windowed viewer that should work well with a Tablet because the windows can be shuffled around as needed. Portrait mode shouldn’t be a problem. And according to the company no special hardware is needed beyond what the Tablet already has.
Currently the app is in beta. (I tried installing from a CD, but ran into a hitch. I’ll try again later today.) Their plan is that they will provide the viewing app for free and charge for the content. In particular, they are marketing their system as a symphony-based training tool. I hope, however, that they can broaden their content to more styles of music and enable third-parties to create and/or import their own content. I imagine it will depend in which direction customers pull them.
MindJet was the other “Tablet” demoing company. They were showcasing their new SalesForce.com connector for MindManager. With this new tool you can import SalesForce data into a mind map, view it, modify it, and commit your changes back to your SalesForce data.
(By the way, MindJet did have Tablets. A bunch of them. They used them in their exhibit area and were using them to take notes throughout the conference.)
Maybe next year we’ll see someone one stage walking around with a Tablet giving a demo. Something to look forward to.