For many people the jury is still out on the recent Tablet phenomena. Apple’s iPad started everything off back in May 2010, and after a huge take-up by the public, voting with their wallets other manufacturers have been swift to move into production. Almost all major Hardware producers now have a tablet strategy.
The initial thinking on the Tablet was somewhere between a big Smart phone without a camera or telephone capabilities and a device which fell way short of a Laptop. Hence the device was pidgeon holed as essentially a leisure device for watching movies, listening to music, browsing the internet and playing games.
But… let us look a little deeper into the future for the Tablets in conjunction with other trends and we might find a different perspective… Estimates on sales of Tablets has been put at 40-50 million units in the next few years, at the expense of what would have been laptop or netbook sales, why are manufacturers putting so much faith in this emerging market?
Firstly let us look at what the Tablet is not, it is not a Laptop, nor does it want to be either. A laptop is a device which gave us the same functionality as a PC and more, on the move… but was basically a replacement for a PC device, and based on the same technology, running the same operating systems and programs. The laptop like the PC is a device designed for the Client / Server environment, the Tablet on the other hand is a device for a new era.
Imagine 10 years from now… businesses will look very different, Collaborations and Joint Ventures will mean quite sizeable businesses can and will be operated by smart business owners over the Internet, working together across spatial distances. ‘On-The-Move’ computing using highly portable devices will be essential and we will want to access our ‘Information resources’ anywhere and anytime. Business owners will want 24/7 capability to interact and engage with social networks such as Facebook, Linked in, Twitter, and FourSquare and be able to update blog sites from anywhere with photos and video as things happen, immediately.
Much of the above can be done already with iPhones and Android devices and many of those operating at the micro end of the SME marketplace are on board, using Smart Mobile devices to communicate regularly with their networks and followers. Over the next 10 years the more traditional SME with offices and staff must also learn to transform their businesses. In order to remain competitive they have to change, they have to adapt to the hyper-networked new business model… or they will quietly slip away.
The ‘New Business Model’ requires us to be able to operate in a highly flexible manner and connect to our business systems from anywhere, 24/7, in other words, on the cloud. There are many overwhelming reasons why businesses should adapt to the cloud, but this is not the purpose of this article… but once business systems are on the cloud… look what happens.
Suddenly, we can operate our entire business through a web browser. Whether we are placing purchase orders, invoicing, sending client statements, retrieving files, creating spreadsheets, wordprocessed documents or even simple file image manipulation we can do all of this via the Internet. We can even create and run marketing campaigns from the other side of the world!
With simple access to the Internet, the vast majority of the ‘Transactions’ that regular users want to perform ‘day-in-day-out’ can be performed via a web browser, we no longer need local programs or local storage, it is all on the web! What we need now is not a Laptop or a PC, what we need is a slim, no wires (or mouse), always on, multi functional Tablet computer. The Tablet is the device we need for the ‘New Business Model’. The Tablet is the device I had been waiting for since 2001… The Tablet is a useable window onto my data, wherever I am. The Laptop and the PC like the Client / Server infrastructure is coming to the end of its natural life cycle. As the ‘Cloud Computing’ model gathers pace with new Cloud solutions relentlessly emerging for us, so we herald in the start of a new era… the era of the Tablet computer.
And so… not just a Big Smart phone, the Tablet is a device which will serve to assist our migration to ‘Cloud based Business Systems’ over the coming years. Always on and with instant access to all our data in the palm of our hand coupled with built in data protection (very little local data to lose or manage) these devices make Laptops and even Netbooks start to look very clunky… and the fact that these Tablets are attractive, press all the right buttons for Leisure purposes, and have a truly amazing user interface is really icing on the cake, and makes them both highly desirable and a real joy to use!
Chris Ogle is Managing Director of Internet Power Systems Ltd. and is author of his best selling book, In 2 The Clouds. Chris has lived in Watford, England for the majority of his life and is a keen Table Tennis player.
In a career spanning 30 years in the computer industry Chris has worked with 000′s of businesses from small Micro companies through to large multinationals such as Laing O’Rourke. With the exposure to such a diverse range of businesses and their operating processes coupled with his technical background Chris was well placed to design and create one of the first completely web based business platforms for SME’s. Drawing on 7 years of providing Cloud computing solutions to the SME marketplace coupled with a detailed understanding of Internet Marketing has culminated in SME7 – 7 Steps to getting the Business that you really want – more Profit, more time and more Choices! Chris’s book ‘In 2 The Clouds’ takes us through these 7 Steps and removes the mystery of escaping the rat race ‘no time and no money’ to the more desirable ‘More money and more time to enjoy it’!.
Business Transition Programme go to http://www.sme7.com. To find out more about the author go to http://www.ipsx.co.uk/chrisogle_home.htm
