Keith Shaw has written an article pondering the question that has dogged me for some 2 1/2 years now (thanks for the head’s up, Warner). Two of those years I spent on the sidelines like so many others wondering where the Tablet PC would or could fit into our businesses. What drew Mr. Shaw’s curiosity? The new Lenova ThinkPad X41 Tablet.

The article cites price and lack of a “killer app” as the suspects for why Tablet PCs haven’t gone mainstream and at the end asks for feedback:

There may be other reasons why tablets haven’t replaced the notebook yet, and I’d like to hear from the readership on this. Let me know if there are tablets being used in your workplace, and if so, how they’re being used. If you are not using them yet, let me know why.

There already is a killer app for salespeople, which I’ve noted previously: tablets are people magnets. Take one to almost any social setting and people’s heads will turn. That’s a killer app without an app and makes Tablets worth the price of admission for salespeople. This can work to convert independent salespeople but for those who work for companies where sales managers and other upper level types need to approve the use of expensive tools like the Tablet PC, well, that’s a whole other bag of worms.

And there is at least one killer app. Microsoft’s OneNote isn’t flawless, but it’s extremely handy for taking notes at meetings. You can record the audio (video too) and sync to your notes. This put me over the top in my tablet purchase.

A single Tablet, not plural, is being used in both our businesses. When we first bought the Motion M1400, my wife was interested in a tablet but has since struggled to find many reasons or places she might actually use one. She doesn’t drive (by choice), works in front of a desktop computer every day and seems to prefer taking notes with traditional pen and paper. I’ve tried convincing her that inking is far superior to digital notetaking, but she doesn’t seem to care. She does like the sexy nature of the slate design and the relative lightweigth (3 pounds or so).

The Tablet is still a niche product that has been primarily marketed to business people. We have used it for some non-business purposes like playing MMORPG like Everquest and drawing pictures. For business use I like the GPS and Microsoft Streets & Trips 2005 with Tablet PC to help me navigate to various businesses and residential homes.

There are at least three main events I can think of that would help Tablet PCs become more mainstream.

More ink-enabled websites - the web doesn’t embrace inking in large enough numbers to make people say: I want a tablet PC so I can be a part of this. The busiest Tablet PC site I’m aware of (thousands of visitors a day) isn’t really ink-enabled (they do allow you to include an inked signature on their forums). If there were more ink-enabled websites then more people would be interested, IMO.

The problem from the developer side is that they aren’t going to work on ink-enabled web sites — in large numbers anyway — if there isn’t a large audience to warrant the time and energy. Catch 22. My suspicion is that this will change somewhat over the next 12-24 months. I’ve been looking into this as a niche market and think there is some potential here. But I’m only one small developer, there needs to be hundred to thousands of developers who are thinking creatively along these same lines. Get the developers turned on. This is the API era.

Better retail store availability - I keep reading how they are working on this one but every time I walk into any retail store: Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart, etc, I still don’t see any Tablet PCs. My business is 45 minutes from Microsoft HQ and if I can’t find them in retail stores around me with this close proximity to homebase, then how are Tablets ever going to become mainstream?

I do see Media Center PCs and unsurprisingly they are selling. Keep banging the drum on the importance of retail availability: they must get Tablets in retail stores somehow, someway, make their own Microsoft stores like Apple does (Scoble? Would it be possible for them to do this? Why not?). Sorry to be a broken record on this one but if people can’t touch and feel something like this, they just aren’t going to spend the extra money. Manufacturers can make longer battery life, thinner machines, smaller machines, lighter machines but if prospective customers can’t go touchy feely on the machines then they will be primarily sold to business people and geeks. Not a bad demographic necessarily, but not mainstream.

Apple tablet - widely hinted and teased at, but if Apple releases an OS X Tablet then Apple has the “it” factor in coolness (that Microsoft seems to lack) to be able to convert a significant number of naysayers on the platform. With the recent Intel announcement this certainly increases the possibilities. Apple made the iPod the portable device to own, so they have the ability to make the Tablet PC cool It’s already cool to those who are owners of Tablet PC. I’ve seen very few cases of people who have bought tablets and then returned them. But being cool and being mainstream aren’t necessarily the same thing …

Lastly, I think the Tablet PC community needs to work a little more at highlighting business and personal uses of the Tablet PC platform and be less enamored with every new piece of hardware that is released. I’m looking for new ways to use the tablet and try to highlight stories about creative uses of the Tablet whenever I see them (please comment or trackback if you find something).

Seems like every time new Tablet hardware comes out, the Tablet community at large, pun intended, goes mostly ga-ga over analyzing every conceivable detail of the hardware; good, bad and ugly. There’s been tons of stories about the new X41 and Motion LE1600, but what are the developers out there working on? What websites are using ink? For the non-programmer crowd, maybe they can come up with some idea sites to help spur on developer interest?

Not many people care about the hardware except existing Tablet PC users. What the non-Tablet PC users care about are: how can I use this to make computing more entertaing and/or useful in my life, where can I demo one of these, and how much does it cost?

Won’t be mainstream until those answers are very clear.

Did this post make you go hmm?

Maybe Related Posts (plugin generated)

• Scoble to evangelize Tablet PC for Apple? Boris thinks so
• Day 261: Tablet PC sales projections being downshifted by market researchers
• Wendland on Tablet PCs: “I like it. But I’d never buy one.”
• More Apple Tablet PC speculation
• Tablet PCs to be 25% cheaper in next marketing push
• Microsoft taking “a step back” with Tablet PC