In a press conference today Bill Gates once again states that Microsoft is behind the Tablet market for the long run. Good to hear.
According to this IT World article and reports from IDC, Tablet sales will reach 1.2 million units this year. Not bad. At let’s say an average of $1500 a piece, that’s a not too bad $1.8 billion in sales–expected for just this year. Yeah, this is only a tiny fraction of the overall PC market, but then again we’re only in year two of the Tablet market. From zero to just about $2 billion per year in sales. Wow.
Gates elaborated on how he sees the Tablet market changing over the next couple of years:
“There will be a substantial improvement in the tablet software as part of the Longhorn release and that’s just one of many areas we are working on with Toshiba and so I will again, without an exact date, predict that most portable machines will be tablets in the future and I would hope that over the next 3 to 5 years the software and hardware refinements will make that a reality.”
Yep. Longhorn is going to be key to the evolution of the Tablet. As a developer I’m chomping at the bit to see what’ll come next. I want more. I’m expecting more. And it looks like Gates is confident that there will be more. Good news. Very good news.
Who’s the one who bought the .2 unit?
🙂
I don’t think Longhorn is the key to the Tablet PC. I think that the right ink enabled applications are the key. OneNote is cool but it is not enough by itself. We need a bunch of domain specific killer apps that really take advantage of ink. That is what clever people should be thinking about. That is where application devs can make some money and boost the sale of Tablets at the same time.
LOL! I think you mean 1.2 *Million* units. Roll on Longhorn.
Thanks! I made the correction. 🙂
Alfred, I agree that the software is the key. My point about Longhorn is that it _could_ have a significant impact on what developers create if it provides powerful APIs–not just for inking, but for sharing, communication and collaboration–three “features” that I think can reshape the competitive landscape.