Tablets Everywhere: Third Screen in Many Facets of Life

Figure 4 – OS struggle

Apple will continue to hold a strong market share in the emerging tablet market, keeping its design, development, manufacturing system humming. In addition to its early hardware lead, Apple already has a vast selection of apps that seems to grow at breakneck speed.

The big consideration for users will be a closed garden operating system (iOS) and open OS (Android). The big difference though is that the applications you select for the iOS environment will most certainly work, even though you are "captive" in the environment. The open apps should work as advertised, but they will be run on different levels of hardware that will shape the user experience – good and/or bad. By 2014, analysts expect 1.07 billion portable devices to be sold (pretty impressive). But the product mix won't favor tablets.

Figure 5: Big market

All of the mobile device segments will expand rapidly. This will also create a strain on business IT departments where BYO (bring your own) communications device - phone, computer, tablet, etc – is becoming the norm.

The challenge for IT departments is that they have to protect the organization's networks and IP from malware, hacking or theft. The available market for 80 + 1 companies shrinks rapidly. It reminded us of what one of the movie's actors said years ago:

By 1965, there'll be total depravity. How squalid everything will be.