While Apple may be enjoying brisk sales of its touch screen iPad tablet, with more than 3 million of the devices sold since the launch earlier this year, Samsung is gearing up to debut a rival of its own, in a form factor that sits neatly between the iPad and Apple’s popular iPhone smartphone. Details about Samsung’s Galaxy device have begun to emerge, including Google’s Android operating system and features such as 3G and WiFi, a 16:10 screen ratio, a SDHC memory expandability, and a DMB tuner for TV viewing plus something the iPad lacks – a front-facing camera for video calling.
The latest Internet rumor suggests the tablet will be available to CDMA carriers and will debut sometime in early September, though Samsung has yet to officially confirm a specific date. While the current hype is focused on Samsung, some reports suggest the iPad will still dominate the tablet market into 2012. An August report from IT research firm iSuppli predicted that while the iPad would face competition from HP, Lenovo, RIM, Google and others, the tablet won’t face a “viable competitor” until 2011.
Once the tablet format becomes generally available and more fully capable of being integrated into the enterprise, you can expect that it will form a new niche for hardware at your company. According to a news analysis by CIO Insight sister publication eWeek, it’s similar in some ways to what happened when laptop computers started becoming affordable enough to take the place of desktop computers – they started selling in huge numbers and have now topped the older format in sales. Tablets will eventually do this to laptops.
This, of course, has big implications for you and your enterprise. You’re going to have to decide what tablets will be acceptable for your company, and what you’re going to be required to do to make them work with your enterprise. You’ll also have to decide who is going to buy the device, how it’s going to be managed, and what you’ll need in terms of staff and resources to manage it.
In some ways, the challenge will be closer to handling smartphones than laptop computers, but not completely. And at times, you’re going to have to get tough with the rules so that you can avoid those pesky compliance auditors and their questions. But however you look at it, you can’t avoid the rise of the tablets.
It’s time for you and your IT managers to start learning as much as you can about tablets as quickly as you can. Set up a means of testing them when they become available, and buy a couple copies of those that have promise. Start figuring out the answer with a few of iPads, since you can get them now. You’re going to need all of the head start you can get.
For more, read the eWeek article, Samsung Galaxy Pad Tablet to Challenge Apple’s iPad.
