As to who is using such devices, eight out of 10 vendor case studies relate to healthcare, with clinicians using the devices mainly for patient data collection. Other key verticals include education, insurance, estate agents and other 'clip-board' jobs. The devices will also play a role among staff who maintain equipment on oil-rigs, for example, or in manufacturing plants, where it is easier to cost justify their relatively high prices, says Richard Edwards, a research analyst at Butler Group.
"If the value of the information that is in-putted is high enough and there is expediency involved, in that the information can be re-used elsewhere without having to re-key it, tablets can be a compelling proposition. It depends on how the information is used as to whether you’d be better off with a tablet or a laptop though," says Edwards.
Another potential market are high-level managers who tend to use tablets for note-taking purposes, says Gartner's Jump explains: "The majority of adoption took place in the first year of release, with larger accounts testing between one and ten machines. The majority were used in verticals, but some were deployed as executive jewellery."
While unit purchases are now starting to increase to between 50 and 100 in some interested verticals, most "executive jewellery" purchases have already been made and so are unlikely to become a burgeoning opportunity in the near term at least.
In fact, says IDC's Brown, a survey of 1,000 IT procurers undertaken over the last three years indicates that the devices are unlikely to hit the mainstream in the foreseeable future, with between 60 and 70 percent of those questioned having no interest in purchasing them whatsoever.
So what's going on and why hasn't Gates' much-talked-about vision of tablets being the most popular form of PC within five years, become a reality?
According to Bulter's Edwards, historically, the adoption of any new form factor, whether that be the PC a few decades ago or mobile phones in more recent times, leads to "slow take-up on a long runway, but once they’re airborne, things accelerate exponentially".
Nonetheless, he says: "The challenge with tablets is one of the level of functionality offered compared with a PDA or laptop versus price. If you're an IT manager looking to set a recommendation, you'd probably struggle to come up with a solid case for paying a 25 to 30 percent premium over a notebook in most industries."
