Friday, November 06, 2009

A Day At The Tablet Races

So who will emerge in the forefront of the tablet race? Some ask if there will be a race or will the bookies favourite ‘Apple’ merely turn up and romp home with the spoils? The one thing that is certain is that the events will unfold differently to that expected and that Apple is clearly starting out as favourite.

More is emerging on the Microsoft Courier, yet another rumored tablet with its own mythology. It is claimed by the likes of Gizmodo that the device's main function will be as a day planner/notebook able to take notes, snap photos, browse the Web, and clip photos and text from Web pages. If Microsoft believe that is the real market demand they obviously have yet once again missed the point and more importantly not looked at a smartphone.

However, it is rumored that the Courier tablet will have 2 x 7” colour screens. These will be housed in a book looking device with a hinge in the middle. No keyboard handwriting recognition for text input which is fine if you really want to spend hours getting it tuned to your handwriting. Do Microsoft seriously believe that there are millions of Bridget Jones’s out there looking for a new virtual journal?

The Smart Agenda would essentially be a condensed version of your Infinite Journal pulling together day-to-day information for easy reference including e-mails, to-do lists, appointments, and recent messages. Clicking on any of these items in the Smart Agenda would take you to the page where these items are stored in your Infinite Journal. Microsoft may be focused on clouds today but where is this Courier going that smartphones aren’t? We think that the current interest in tablets is driven by the need for a multi media device that is portable and that bit bigger than a phone and in reality a tablet should be able to do anything rumoured against the Courier.

So we continue to wait for the favourite.

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