eWeek - June 7, 2010

that the iPad—or any other tablet— meets the needs of the business in all the areas in which it has impact. For example, if it’s being used in health care, it must meet HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) requirements.

Whether the tablet meets all the necessary compliance requirements is up to the IT office and the compliance auditors. However, as is the case with so much else in IT, a great deal will depend on what use is planned for the device.

In the case of tablets such as the iPad, the planned use means a great deal. “You’re not going to create a PowerPoint or write a 40-page document on a tablet,” analyst Gold said, noting that the target use has to be determined for every enterprise for this or any other tablet computer.

For example, using an iPad as your window on the Internet to run Web-based applica tions might be a perfect use, but it could also be a challenge given Apple’s continued refusal to support Adobe’s Flash.

Other tablets that appear in the near future could have similar limita tions in meeting enterprise require ments. Right now, the exact nature of HP’s WebOS tablet (assuming it’s real) or perhaps an Android-based tablet remains to be seen. Perhaps these devices will be more enterprise-ready, or perhaps they’ll be pure consumer devices with no real enterprise applications.

Whatever form they take, Gold doubts they’ll represent a true mainstream solution to general computing needs. “Why does this make my life easier, faster or better?” he asked. “Tablets were never a

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enterprise, and includes a stylus and a keyboard. Both ease data entry and content creation, but make the tablets less portable.

general solution for making my life better. One of the fundamental issues is that it’s got to be better than what I’ve got, or why buy it?”

A fuzzy line

The same is true to some extent with netbook computers. Their physical size makes them less than totally suitable for many of the tasks for which people use laptop computers.

But the line between netbooks and laptops is getting very fuzzy.

Notebook makers are delivering devices called netbooks that have 12- inch screens and physically resemble highly portable laptop computers. The overlap is significant, and even one prior differentiator, the use of Intel’s Atom processor, is going away as some notebook and laptop computers adopt this low-power approach to computing.

In fact, the distinction between
netbook and laptop com-
puters may have already
disappeared. Some ana-
lysts, including Far-
point’s Mathias, already
lump them together.

Tablets, likewise, may be morphing into notebook computers more than supplanting them.

The touch screen and multitouch technology that are already being used on the iPad and a variety of smartphones are pretty much a sure thing for laptop computers. Touch screens have been around for years, and so have tablets that can switch between being a conventional laptop computer and being a device that features a touch-sensitive screen.

The biggest difference that’s on the horizon will be the adoption of some of the technologies that have seen success in the tablet and mobile world. For example, Apple’s iPad uses the same operating environment as its iPod Touch, and HP’s rumored Hurricane tablet may use Palm’s WebOS. These new environments will also include their user interfaces and media display capabilities.

Days are numbered

Another area that’s already making the transition from mobile devices to notebook computers is solid-state storage. While rotating hard disks will clearly be around for a while because of their low price and high capacity, their days in the world of mobile computers, including laptops, are numbered.