HTC To Launch Apple iSlate Competitor
Smartphones, tablets and netbooks are set to be high on the agenda at this year's Consumer Electronics Show as traditional PC vendors look to compete with the new Apple iSlate which is due to be released on the 26th January in the USA.
Context & Ripple Effects
The iSlate has been an open secret since AppleInsider reported in July 2009 that Apple's much-anticipated tablet was coming early next year, and the now-confirmed January 26 US release gives every competitor a hard deadline to beat. Smarthouse's report lands days before CES, where traditional PC vendors plan to show tablets and netbooks aimed at the same buyer Apple is targeting.
What makes this round notable is who is responding: HTC, a smartphone maker rather than a PC vendor, has confirmed plans for a tablet rivaling the iSlate — evidence that the answering fire is coming from the handset side of the industry as much as the PC side.
First-order effects
- HTC's confirmed tablet program positions it among the first movers to meet Apple's January 26 US launch head-on, competing for the same early adopters before Apple's design and pricing become the category's reference point.
- CES becomes an opening skirmish: PC vendors' tablets and netbooks on display there will be measured directly against a device most attendees have not yet seen.
Second-order effects
- Netbook vendors face the sharpest squeeze — the low-cost portable category they built now sits between smartphones and a sub-$1,000-class Apple slate, forcing repositioning or price cuts.
- Rivals such as Microsoft and its PC partners must decide whether to pre-announce their own slate designs or concede the entire news cycle between CES and January 26 to Apple.
Third-order effects
- If handset makers like HTC keep moving up into slates while PC makers move down, the boundary between the phone and PC industries dissolves into a single contest over one form factor — with Apple, as the first mover with a firm ship date, holding the advantage of defining the category's terms.
The trend: Consumer computing is converging on the slate form factor ahead of Apple's January 2010 iSlate launch, with both smartphone and PC vendors racing to establish a position before Apple sets the category's terms.