Jim Forbes on his current view of Tablets, UMPC’s, etc….

–

I’m always interested to hear what anyone has to say about Tablet’s and UMPC’s. I cruise the internet looking for new thoughts, new faces, etc. in order to help provide what we hope is a well rounded reporting experience for you. I cam across this blog entry today, from James Forbes. Here is the info from his blog bio page:

“Jim Forbes, now retired in San Diego, is the founding producer of a Demo event and was the editor of the award-winning Demo and DemoWeek newsleters, as well as a Sr. Editor with InfoWorld, PCWeek and other publications. I follow mobile technology very closely.”

Now I have never read anything that I remember by James, but I did think his blog post was a nice read, so offer it for your perusal as well. He titled it, “Gates Starts Promoting Tablet Computing, Again”. Here is an excerpt:

…..”Bill Gates is back to giving tablet computing its occasional booster shot. Last week, speaking in Holland, the Gatester predicted that tablet PCs would replace textbooks for all students. If that doesn’t make tablet PC marketing managers’ heart beats spike and their spread sheet projections go through the roof, then there’s nothing that can be done for them. Well actually there is an it’s up to Microsoft to do it. The one thing that’s needed now is Vista, which will contain updates to Windows’ aging tablet PC drivers and which will be the keystone to the release of new, better performing tablet PCs. Microsoft’s push back on the release of Vista upset more than a few marketing managers’ plans. It also has likely delayed the release of new hardware needed to help push tablet PCs directly into the mainstream”…..

….”I’m intimately familiar with two of the best selling tablet PCs, a Lenovo ThinkPad X41 and a Hewlett Packard TC1100. In fact it was after briefly using an HP TC1100 at Demo Fall 2005 that I got interested in tablet computing again. As I’ve written in earlier blogs, I became disillusioned in tablet PCs after using a device called an M240 from a smoking hole in the floor of Silicon Valley caused by a company called Momenta Inc.” ….

….”I love the form factor and the inherent capabilities of tablet PCs, I think this class of computers is about ready for wide scale corporate deployment. I’m sold on the technology and intend on using this machines for years to come.–Jim Forbes”

Looks like Jim has been both a fan and an enemy of the platform, but sees the promise. Read his entire well stated blog post here