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TABLETS are a ‘fad’ and not the big game changer that so many industry observers believe them to be, according to Dell.

Bryan Jones, Dell’s marketing director for public and large enterprise in EMEA told V3.co.uk that PCs and laptops will not be displaced by tablets, despite all the hysteria generated by products like the Ipad.

“We’re seeing the tablet as a fad right now, like netbooks were three years ago. I expect it will find its space in the corporate infrastructure, but it’s not sounding the death knell of the corporate laptop or the workstation, or any number of those devices,” Jones said.

“When we talk with corporate customers, a lot of people say they want a tablet form factor, but that’s as an additional device, not their only device.”

We can’t possibly comment on whether Jones would be saying this if the Dell Streak had managed to achieve the same level of success as the Ipad.

You can read the full Dell interview at V3.co.uk. µ

NVIDIA CHIEF Jen-Hsun Huang has told Reuters that he expects Android-based tablet devices to overtake the Apple Ipad in terms of popularity.

Huang, who is the CEO of chip designer Nvidia, said that improved versions of the Android operating system and an increase in the number of applications will help propel Google-based systems above the Apple alternative.

“The Android phone took only two and a half years to achieve the momentum that we’re talking about. I would expect the same thing on Honeycomb tablets,” said Huang to Reuters.

Huang also took time to discuss Superman’s son, or perhaps he was referring to Nvidia’s next-generation mobile processor when he mentioned Kal-El.

Kal-El, said Huang, has already been accepted into devices from major PC and phone firms, however he was vague about how many.

“It’s got to be at least 10. We have five major phone companies and we have five major PC [manufacturers],” he said. µ

SECURITY CONSULTANCY Kaspersky Lab shot down claims Google has made about the security of its Chromebook, such as it “doesn’t need virus protection”.

Kaspersky expert Costin Raiu said the statement came at a pretty bad time, with French security firm Vupen announcing this week that it broke into Google Chrome’s security protection.

You would imagine criminals would quickly get busy on the Chromebook, trying to find ways of infecting it using a similar type of exploit, which would simply need a user to browse a booby-trapped web page.

However, Raiu said that the Chrome OS is designed in such a way that it has a good self healing capacity, is easy to update, and is resilient against any outside modification. Reinstallation also won’t be a problem, as none of the data is held on the computer.

He said, “It’s a new operating system, it has new security defenses into place (self healing, updates) and it’s used in a different way – the data is not on the computer but in the cloud.”

But of course, hackers could go for the information Google has in the cloud. As Sony found to its cost, any leak would could be disastrous.

“With Cloud centric OS’es, the race will be towards stealing access credentials, after which, it’s ‘game over’,” Raiu said.

“Who needs to steal banking accounts, when you have Google Checkout? Or, who needs to monitor passwords, when they’re all nicely stored into the Google Dashboard?” µ

THE MAKER OF SHINY TOYS, Apple won’t face any challengers to its Ipad 2 during 2011 if analyst outfit Forrester is to be believed.

Nevermind that Motorola, Toshiba, Samsung, Research in Motion (RIM), HTC, Viewsonic, HP, LG and Acer have already shown off new tablets, Forrester thinks, “Competing tablets to the iPad are poised to fail” and forecasted that Apple will enjoy an 80 per cent market share by the end of 2011.

That’s a rather impressive statement given that rival outfit Strategy Analytics claims that Android devices already make up 22 per cent of the market. Apparently Forrester believes that Apple’s unimpeded run to tablet glory is due to consumers placing higher value on Apple products and customer care.

Sarah Rotman, senior analyst at Forrester also said there was a human element favouring Apple. “The humans working in the Apple Store will have a huge impact teaching consumers about the iPad and how to use it.” Humans working in a store? It seems Apple has tapped into an unknown resource, the village elders must be informed at once.

Rotman continued by saying that those who work at Verizon and Best Buy stores don’t know how to flog tablets, whereas Apple has the customer dancing to its tune right from the get-go. Rotman is right in that sense, perhaps. Apple’s retail experience is certainly better than wandering around a branch of PC World or Best Buy being courted by a salesperson who is more enthusiastic about selling an extended warranty than the features of products on the shelves.

However Rotman wasn’t writing off all of Apple’s competitors. The shining beacon of light reflecting from her Ipad comes from Amazon, as she has detected a “market that’s ripe for disruption” by the mail-order firm. Confused? Here’s Forrester’s three-point plan for Amazon to take on Apple.

1. Launch its own e-book service after Apple managed to anger so many with its payment rules. This is probably Amazon’s best chance at one-upping Apple as its recent payment fiasco left many up in arms.

2. Copy the Gillette sales model. Flog the tablet at below cost and overcharge for content. Such a scheme has worked wonders for the popularity of file sharing networks on the Internet.

3. Use its brand, retail channel and the content. According to Forrester’s figures more people want to buy a tablet from Amazon than Motorola.

It’s not all that surprising consumers rate Motorola so poorly, given that for the past five years Motorola has shown off only three devices worthy of note, the Milestone, Atrix and Xoom. Forrester doesn’t provide any figures for comparison against brands such as Samsung, LG, HP or RIM.

Amazon does have an impressive supply chain, but so do firms such as HP and Acer. Unlike with books, users like to play around with tablets before buying them, so a lack of brick and mortar stores could hinder Amazon in selling tablet PCs. It also seems that Rotman is using the argument that Amazon’s considerable success with the Kindle will automatically translate to the much more technologically complicated tablet PC market.

Perhaps realising that putting all her eggs in Amazon’s basket could leave Rotman with egg on her face, she says a more detailed report outlines ways in which Sony, Microsoft and Vizio, a US consumer electronics outfit, can also ‘disrupt’ the market. It would be an easy recommendation to make if Sony and Microsoft had set the smartphone market ablaze recently, but The INQUIRER isn’t buying it.

While some of Rotman’s points seem a little iffy, she is still on the right track with urging tablet manufacturers to create low-cost devices. US bookseller Barnes and Noble has been pushing its Nook reader, which is in essence a cheap Android tablet with an e-reader application. It is available only in the US, but Barnes and Noble has said that it has sold millions of devices.

The problem is, as Rotman has pointed out, that tablet PCs such as Motorola’s Xoom are priced too closely to Apple’s Ipad 2. For a lot of people who find it hard to look beyond the branding, there simply isn’t enough of a price difference to consider something other than Apple’s iconic products.

Even so, it is hard to see how Apple will hold on to a 93 per cent market share with the onslaught of Android tablets in 2011. Apple might still remain the number one vendor, but just as in the smartphone market, Steve Jobs won’t be able to stem the tide of the Android tablets. µ

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This is completely bogus. Apple’s "Customer Service" consists of artfully dodging relevant technical questions and managing to deny any help whatsoever for incidents of eminently defective design problems. I have an iPhone whose front glass shattered while 80+ minutes into an important call and I have a MacBook Pro with an exploding battery that not only destroyed the computer’s case but burned my leg whilst self-destructing. I used to love Apple back from the original Apple II+ days. Jobs has shown his true face as an artful mass-scammer. Dear Leader has many more tricks up his sleeve but the iPad 2 is not one of them.

posted by : Lee Chen, 11 March 2011 Complain about this comment IpAD

Your story would have more credibility if you learned how to spell iPad.

posted by : Michael Young, 11 March 2011 Complain about this comment You lost me…

What’s an iPad?

posted by : RobinPanties, 11 March 2011 Complain about this comment @Michael Young

For your consideration, The Inquirer guide to spelling:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1002967/inquir

Short quotes for those without long enough attention spans (the average Apple fanboy?)

"We take a simple view on spelling – we try to get it right, regardless of what overpaid cokeheads in marketing departments believe."

"These names are names. Proper nouns. All that mid-word capital-letter guff is all marketing. And we don’t do marketing here."

posted by : Jester, 12 March 2011 Complain about this comment Good article

&lt;eom

posted by : Slava, 12 March 2011 Complain about this comment Apple’s flop will be flash

I can’t agree with this, til now Job’s has been playing a dangerous move, but soon it can turn against him. He thinks he tells flash sucks, and people will leave flash, because of his interests on apps business, but he forgets that in Europe, Apple’s major market is still the marketing and design professionals, who know flash is the only support to deliver truly multimedia support for web (html5 is still limited and 85% of top hundred websites use flash to an extended degree, and have no intention of switching) and Adobe isn’t a small company he can pick on it, this is a battle he can’t win, and android is already gaining a major market, being flash one of their wild cards (in comparative articles, flash support is the turning point for android based devices).I’m a designer, I’ve always preferred mac’s on pc’s, but I won’t get a Ipad or an Iphone if I can get a android device and see my work and other work with flash content.

posted by : Viegas, 12 March 2011 Complain about this comment @Sarah

"and having the manufacturers able to delete anything they don’t like from it"

Google is able to do that with Android too, they’re doing it with the software that’s been installing malware on Android phones.

Maybe Apple products are a bit of a status symbol, but no more so than Android devices are a ‘stance against apple’ for some people

I’ve yet to see a website (other than myspace which I use for my friends music) that I can’t view without flash.

That’s not to say I don’t want it, but I can certainly do without it

Also, how is it over-priced? Samsung had to admit they need to go back to the drawing board because they were going to charge more for the 10" Galaxy Tab. Yes, it’s not cheap but I wouldn’t say it’s over-priced

Be reasonable and stop being such a "android fangirl" – oh yes, I went there

posted by : dicky, 12 March 2011 Complain about this comment I see that the haters are out in force

If you can’t see the point in a tablet then here’s a tip – don’t buy one. If you can see the point then the competition currently falls into three categories – (1) cheap and nasty, your specials that have woeful battery life and performance, (2) 7" models (1/2 the size due to the fact that they measure screen diagonal) that lack proper OS and have limited app support while not being much cheaper than the iPad, and (3) 10" models that have an incomplete OS and even more limited app support (plus they cost more than all but the most expensive iPad model).

It’s not wildly surprising that analysts think that the current competition isn’t up to taking major volume off of Apple. What IS surprising is the number of different uses that people are thinking up for them. Businesses in particular are coming up with new applications (everything from cockpit charts and manuals for pilots to insurance broking systems that save brokers from dragging suitcases full of documents around with them). If the device looks good then so much the better.

As for the "woman" commenter above, the stats show that the iPad is approaching gender neutrality, i.e. nearly 1/2 of it’s users are female. There may be some who use it as a status symbol, but many see its utility. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like someone who shuns others based in what they do or don’t own.

posted by : Steve T, 12 March 2011 Complain about this comment @Sarah

So, lesbian apple haters do exist then!

I think, love, the word for which you were looking is PREPOSTEROUS, which, basically, sums up your rather crass comment.

posted by : the Cunning Stunt, 12 March 2011 Complain about this comment Most read Most commented Most watched Opensuse 11.4 arrives with another kernel and more drivers LG announces a M50 TV and Monitor display Nokia crowd sources its ‘next billion user’ phone Apple’s Ipad 2 rivals will fail, says analyst firm Facebook email offer is blighted by scammers Microsoft’s marketshare falls thanks to WP7 Anonymous emails can be traced Websites face a cookie clampdown Apple’s Ipad 2 rivals will fail, says analyst firm Android is outselling Iphones says Tesco LG Optimus Pad tablet video demo

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When we looked at NVIDIA's 480M with its 100W TDP, we were curious how long it would take for notebook manufacturers to deal with the power requirements that two such GPUs would place on a laptop. Three months later and Clevo has now revamped their flagship desktop replacement to support 480M SLI with desktop Core i7 processors—including support for hex-core options up to the i7-980X! Make no mistake about it: this is a beast of a notebook designed for a certain clientele, with pricing higher than most are willing to pay. But if you want the fastest DTR system on the planet (at least for now), the X7200 is the new king of the hill.

Nick Farrell THE INQUIRER

Spells it out for the Grauniad

Rob Coppinger THE INQUIRER

No mindshare time however

LOOKING UP NOSTRILS with the Iphone 4 Facetime video calling feature will count towards customers WiFi data allowance and not minutes on O2 contracts, the UK network has revealed.

The shiny Apple gadget is officially being launched in the UK on 24 June but is available for purchase only to the very few due to supply shortages of touchscreens. So pricing information is emerging only slowly.

An O2 spokesman said that Facetime will operate only over WiFi connections because it “is an Apple setting, and you will have to talk to them about any future plans,” he added.

It is unknown whether the Skype-like applications will be made available over 3G, because then charges will apply. Skype-to-Skype calling via 3G is free until the end of 2010, subject to operator data charges. After then there will be a small monthly fee, according to O2.

Video calling on mobiles has failed to take off, partly owing to high prices. Vodafone confirmed to The INQUIRER that it will also offer Facetime over WiFi. Three is the last major network to invest significantly in this area. µ