July 23, 2004

Still waiting for great e-book revolution to begin

It?s time to talk about the Tablet PC again. I wrote about this a couple of years ago, back in summer 2002. To be honest I was hoping we would have seen greater use by now. Back then, I wrote that I viewed the Tablet as a sort of ?missing link? in the evolution of the electronic book, a bridge between the current situation in which few people are reading electronic books, and the future, in which the e-book will become the dominant form of book. I also wrote that ?Within a year or two millions of people will own e-book readers masquerading as Tablet PCs.? I was wrong, unfortunately.

Fewer than a million Tablet PCs have been sold; the magical million barrier may be broken by the end of this year … though it may not.

Why are so few Tablets in use? Because almost nobody knows they exist. Look in the average computer catalog, such as Dell, or on a major manufacturer?s Web site, such as Gateway.com, and you probably won?t see a Tablet. When I describe the Tablet PC to most people, it?s clear they?ve never even heard of the concept, let alone actually seen one.

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So here?s a quick description. Imagine a very light laptop. Open the lid, and you?ll notice that there?s a single hinge connecting the screen to the body. It?s a swivel hinge in the middle of the screen, allowing you to flip the screen around so it faces away from you as you sit in front of the keyboard. Now you can close the screen on top of the keyboard; but as you have swiveled it around, the screen is now on top of the box. You?ve closed the laptop, but the screen is on the outside.

Now what? You can use a pen ? well, a stylus ? to work with the computer, to open menus and select options, to scroll through windows and even to write and draw. That?s right, you can write on the screen, and your computer will even convert your writing into word-processor text. It works pretty well, too, it really can recognize normal handwriting ? reasonably clear writing, that is, though not necessarily perfect ? and convert it to text pretty accurately.

These are very cool little machines. They?re light, they can be used as traditional laptops or as tablets on which you can write. They have built-in wireless cards so it?s easy to sit in an airport, or Starbucks or even a McDonald?s if you?re traveling in Japan and connect to the Internet. And they can be used to read books, in a form that is similar to a large book.

My belief is that if more people knew about these things, many more would sell. Admittedly they are more expensive. A laptop that may cost $1,400 would be perhaps $2,400 in tablet form. But the price differential is OK for many people, because they really are just so damn cool. Clearly hundreds of thousands of people have been willing to pay extra or have at least been able to convince their employers to pay extra. And yet few people even know about them.

Why do these machines have to be so expensive? I can?t believe the hinge or other form changes should ultimately make much difference to the price; the only major price difference should be the touch screen. Of course tablets tend to be smaller and lighter than laptops ? that?s part of the point of the thing, after all, to get as close to a writing tablet as possible ? which tends to make them more expensive. But if the price of a tablet were the same or just a little more than a laptop, and if people actually knew the things existed, I?m sure sales would explode.

Which brings me back to the whole electronic book thing. Progress has been slow, but it?s definitely on the way. Around 165,000 e-books are now sold each month, perhaps significantly more, and sales seem to be rising around 50 percent a year. And there are markets that are perfect for e-books, in particular the education market. The University of Phoenix, for instance, no longer provides paper books ? every student gets a Web account from which they can download e-books. There?s a market for e-books; it?s not the ?curl up in front of the fire with a good book? market, but it?s there nonetheless ? academic books, technical books, reference books and so on.

Two years ago I predicted that it would be 10 to 15 years before e-books exceeded paper books. I?ve got eight to 13 years left. Will it happen? Not at current growth rates ? e-books will be at perhaps 10 or 12 percent of all book sales unless something happens to accelerate things. Still, 10 summers ago most people had no idea what the Internet was all about, and the Web held just a few hundred sites, virtually none of which actually sold anything. Things can change quickly. I?m not willing to put any money down, but I?m watching with interest.

Peter Kent is the author of ?Search Engine Optimization for Dummies? and many other computer- and Internet-related books. For more information, see www.iChannelServices.com.

It?s time to talk about the Tablet PC again. I wrote about this a couple of years ago, back in summer 2002. To be honest I was hoping we would have seen greater use by now. Back then, I wrote that I viewed the Tablet as a sort of ?missing link? in the evolution of the electronic book, a bridge between the current situation in which few people are reading electronic books, and the future, in which the e-book will become the dominant form of book. I also wrote that ?Within a year or two millions of people will own…

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