Tablet PCs: Is It All About Feeds and Speeds or Dollars and Cents

The following is a guest article by John Hill, owner of Allegiance Technology Partners and TabletPCBuzz.com

– John Hill

Most of the chatter about tablet PCs comes from websites where owners discuss the latest and greatest incremental improvements in processor, memory and features. The real growth in tablet PC sales, however, comes from the seemingly mundane, daily use of tablets as business tools. To illustrate, I looked through the customers who bought tablets from us in June alone. Here are their stories.

• A heating and air conditioning company in Georgia bought six tablets for use with their custom accounting and service manager software
• One of the world’s largest construction companies bought two tablets for use on a project in NY
• On the NY Commodities Exchange, a company bought another tablet for electronic trading
• In Chicago, another commodities broker bought more units for their traders
• North Dakota State University replaced their aging slate tablet; it is used for tracking crop growth along with infrared imaging technology so that farmers can use their land more efficiently
• A well known appliance manufacturer is testing units for use with their refrigerators; if you’ve read about home automation, this is it in real life
• An appraiser in North Carolina will use her tablet with WinTotal residential appraisal software to complete valuations faster and on-site
• A physical therapy practice added another used tablet for completing patient evaluations
• Pilots for a charter flight service in Burlington, Vermont won’t have to carry 70 pounds of paper charts now that they have tablets to use as EFBs (electronic flight bags)
• Several large commercial construction companies purchased tablets for multiple job sites to be used with Vela Systems software that automates the field management of large projects
• A small medical office in South Dakota will use their new tablets along with Dragon Naturally Speaking and an electronic medical record to streamline the patient management process
• In El Cerrito, CA, district workers will manage the community’s physical assets with software designed to work on a tablet PC
• And Burl’s Termite and Pest in Winchester, TN will start using their first tablet in the field along with pest management software to better serve their growing client base

If I’ve learned anything about marketing Tablet PCs, it is this: it is all about mobility. I used to think it was about handwriting. It is not. Our success has come from finding people who need to do their work while walking around. Think appraisers, inspectors, medical staff, landscapers, service techs and builders. These are people who aren’t making money unless they are on the job site or in front of their customer. It is easy for them to understand the return on investment of a tablet computer.