The story of the week is the official launch of the Tablet
PC, which is a new Microsoft computing platform that
combines pen input, keyboard input, and laptop power. I
have read dozens of articles on the subject and almost all
of them take a dim view of the new platform. Most of the
criticisms range from naive to absurd. On the naive side,
analysts have said it's too similar to a conventional
laptop design to be worth the upgrade. On the absurd side,
analysts have said it's too similar to the Newton and
other pen-based systems that have already failed. "Why
would Microsoft's attempt at this be any different from
the previous failed attempts?" seems to be the prevailing
theme from this group of analysts.
It is clear from most of these comments that few analysts
have had the chance to actually try one of these units,
let alone imagine all the possibilities the new platform
offers. I for one have been searching for a solution like
this since I was merely a contributing editor of
ComputerUser. While not every implementation of the rather
flexible platform meets my needs, it's an awfully good
fist stab at meeting all my computing needs in a single
device. I've been lucky enough to see units in action,
and I'm impressed by what I see. I've also been apprised
of the range of possibilities for types of jobs other than
just office work to know that this is the beginning of
something special in the computing field--something we
have been hoping would come along in a beleaguered tech
economy since everyone wanted to put ".com" at the end of
their companies' names.
As for the claim that it is too similar to conventional
laptops, think of all the times you take notes on paper
and imagine having the ability to archive these notes in
digital form. The other day I temporarily misplaced my
spiral-bound notebook in the construction melee at my
house. It had important interviews, directives from the
president of the company, and other management issues in
it. The thought of losing it permanently made me
physically ill. Fortunately I found it. But it made me
think that if I had a computer that replaced the paper
notebook and was backed up regularly, having all this
important stuff archived would have made the search a
nonissue. Regardless of how well the handwriting-to-text
and drawings-to-GIF converters work (they are between a
1.0 and a 2.0 release, in terms of repeatability), just
having the raw notes and drawings to search through with
modern tools, share with others, and save for safekeeping
would be worth a lot to me, to say nothing of the improved
interface offered by pen-based mouse navigation.
As for the claims that it is too similar to other pen-only
platforms, this is just rubbish. The fact is, you can do
everything with these machines that you can do with a
laptop. Pen-only machines assumed that handwriting would
be an effective input system exclusively. When I had a
Newton, the only accessory I thought I really needed was a
keyboard, as good as the handwriting system was relative
to everything that has been developed since. No one wants
to compose letters, write e-mail, and use spreadsheets and
databases with a pen. The pen-based system in the office
is just for those times when a keyboard is clumsy,
especially in meetings and interviews. Everyone needs a
keyboard and a full-size screen for the majority of work,
which makes pen-only systems a niche platform.
Simply put, the Tablet PC is the best of both worlds.
Finally, the Tablet PC gives people who can't sit at a
workstation and do their jobs at the same time the power
of a PC. Office work is only a fraction of the workforce.
Warehouses, construction sites, medical offices,
hospitals, airports, trucks, retail outlets, and a slew of
so-called vertical applications demand pen-based systems
that can be carried around. In the past, computing in
these environments was the realm of niche proprietary
vendors. These systems were expensive and often didn't
talk to the PCs and servers back at the home office
without expensive middleware.
Developing a system that integrated the front end (the
workers in the warehouse) with the back-end (the home
office and its entire server system) was a nightmare of
mixed standards and failed projects. It was a hidden
reason why Customer Relationship Management systems didn't
work--they depended on data from the field that didn't
relate to the data in the office. Now a company can
develop one extension of Office applications (templates
for forms input that import the data into back-end
databases on the fly) that works from front to back and
all points in between. And the PC can be the universal
platform for every worker who needs to input data of any
kind to suit their businesses. And they can perform
analytics to better relate to their customers in real
time.
Perhaps I'm missing something here, but this seems like a
platform that can jump-start the tech economy. I'm not
saying it's there yet. We need several other building
blocks in place to make the dream a reality (secure
wireless networking standards, higher bandwidth, faster
servers, better batteries and screens, etc., etc.). But it
is the cornerstone of a solid foundation that can push the
PC into all non-manual job titles. I can see scores of
companies doing an ROI analysis on changing out their
legacy proprietary solutions for the (not quite) open
Tablet PC standard. In many cases, it may take a while for
them to make the investment. But lots of
companies--Northwest Airlines, Best Buy, UPS among them--will start the upgrade cycle soon. And business
technology investment can get back on track in 2003.
James Mathewson is editor of ComputerUser magazine and ComputerUser.com
