Comment Articles

Why a tablet PC is in your future

David Coursey AnchorDesk

Published: 13 Nov 2001 17:04 GMT

For the past decade, the most important thing to know about "pen-based computing" is that it was more about pens than it was about computing.

Yes, you could use a stylus to write on the screens of certain portable, pen-based computers, but this was mostly the province of insurance adjusters, salespeople, cops and others who lived in a world dominated by forms.

The machines themselves tended to be such a collection of trade-offs, however, that using them for anything besides pen input was a non-starter. Many didn't even come with a keyboard. This made them expensive single-purpose devices. The result was that customers stayed away in droves -- even those who might have benefited from pen-based applications.

But being laughed at is worse than being ignored. And most of the handwriting recognition that is synonymous with pen-based computing has produced results that are literally laughable. Like when you write a sentence on the screen and gibberish, or better yet, a nonsense phrase, appears on the screen.

Into this quagmire of not-yet-ready-for-prime time technology marches Microsoft, promising to change how people look at pen computing -- not only by changing its name to "tablet computing," but also by making it useful, and more useable, for the average business user or student.

This was the big point of Bill Gates' Sunday keynote, and Microsoft is predicting that before too long, tablet computing features will be so common that, well, people like me won't write snide columns about them anymore.

Ten hardware companies announced support for Microsoft's XP-based Tablet PC here at Comdex. The most notable of these was Acer, which brought a prototype of a machine that twists to reveal and hide its keyboard. Other hardware OEMs included Compaq, Toshiba, Fujitsu, NEC, Samsung, and several companies whose products are ultimately re-branded by others.