The Tablet PC Countdown Begins

Mainstream ISVs will demonstrate applications that are integrated with tablet PCs at the New York launch on Nov. 7, including Microsoft's Office XP Pack for Tablet PC, Adobe Systems' Tablet PC plug-in for Acrobat, Corel's Grafigo 1.0, Autodesk's Architectural Studio, Groove Networks' Groove 2.5, KeyLogix's Active Docs for Tablet PC, ScanSoft's OmniForms and Paperport, and ESRI's Tablet PC for ArcGIS. Many of these will be downloadable, free apps available next week.

Also, vertical market ISVs such as Allscripts Healthcare, Chicago; Amicore, Andover, Mass.; and Eclipsys, Boca Raton, Fla., have designed their health-care software for Tablet PC use, and LexisNexis is preparing a legal document solution that exploits the new platform. Next week ESRI, Redlands, Calif., will debut its popular mapping and geographic information systems (GIS) software optimized for the Tablet PC, which can be used by companies in industries where field work is prevalent--by petroleum and oil companies, and by government agencies, for example, said ESRI executives.

Business users also can exploit Web-based networks and platforms that have been integrated with the mobile Tablet PC to enhance collaboration and access to enterprise applications. WebEx Communications, San Jose, Calif., has integrated its WebEx Meeting Center with the Tablet PC note-taking capabilities to enhance mobile meetings over the Internet. "The applications that leverage the [mobile form factor of the Tablet PC--those that are communications- and collaboration-intensive--are the killer applications," said K.V. Rao, director of technology at WebEx Communications. "I can use my Tablet PC to take notes and manipulate notes, to mark up content, and to annotate and interact online. I like the pen, too, because it's a nonintrusive and intuitive tool."

Iteration Software, founded last February, has developed a realtime enterprise alerting and reporting platform, called Iteration Intelligence Server, which was built "from the ground up" for the Tablet PC and promises up-to-the-second delivery of continuously changing enterprise data, a company spokeswoman said.

While these vendors will feature their Tablet PC offerings at the Tablet PC Partner Pavilion next week, much of the focus at the launch event will be on the industry's leading application software vendor: Microsoft.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will formally roll out the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and its new features, including Windows Journal and separate utilities such as the Office XP Pack for Tablet PC, an add-on that will be useful out of the gate for mainstream mobile information workers and channel partners crafting new solutions.

Office XP Pack for Tablet PC, also referred to as Office XP Special Tablet PC Edition, supports digital ink within Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The add-on, which will be available as a 1-Mbyte file for download next week, runs on Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

Office Pack will enable Office XP users to use a digital pen and the Input Panel utility to write directly on-screen and save and share handwritten notes, comments and annotations in Office documents. The digital ink notes appear as natural-looking, handwritten notes, which can also be converted into text, Microsoft executives said. Inking can also be used to insert a sketch or drawing in Office documents and to take free-hand notes in the Windows Journal feature.

Business users, for example, will be able to write notes using the Windows Journal feature and then convert those notes to typed text in a Word document, or they can add ink comments in Microsoft Word 2002 documents, underline key points in PowerPoint presentations, create and annotate Outlook e-mails or circle key numbers in Excel spreadsheets. The data, however, will be stored as separate file attachments rather than incorporated natively within existing Microsoft file formats, sources said.

"I've played with it, and it works pretty well, especially for business users who are corridor warriors," said one source who declined to be named, adding that the Tablet PC is ideal for corporate users who roam from meeting to meeting because it mimics the traditional tools of business--pen-and-paper--but in digital format. "Mainstream Office users will like it, and then it will be exciting for engineers and salespeople in vertical industries, and for physicians."

Another leading ISV, Adobe, co-developed a Tablet PC plug-in for Acrobat 5 that will support direct manipulation and data input from a digital pen, executives said. The plug-in will be bundled on some of the Tablet PCs that will debut next week, sources said.

"Today, the review, commenting, highlighting and annotation tools in Acrobat are robust, but now you can do it with direct manipulation from a pen, not just a mouse," said Jonathan Knowles, worldwide evangelist for Adobe, noting that users can highlight, circle text and e-mail those edits in PDF files to other users. "We will support the Tablet PC in Acrobat PDF forms so [people can use the pen on check boxes, radio buttons and drop-down menus."

Autodesk plans to ship an upgrade of Architectural Studio in November that will exploit the pen input and digital inking capabilities of the Tablet PC. The studio, which enables architects and other design professionals to create 3-D designs without the complexity of traditional CAD programs, supports direct input from pens and markers today but will be expanded for Microsoft's new form factor, executives said. The company is also developing other products within its GIS Solutions Division adapted to run on the Tablet PC platform.

On Nov. 7, Corel will make available a free download called Corel Grafigo that gives mobile professionals a tool for creating graphics, exchanging notes and collaborating on the Tablet PC. Sources also said Corel will integrate Grafigo functionality in a future upgrade of Corel Draw, although the company would not comment.

Grafigo 1.0, which will be available for download next week, offers shape recognition, Onionskins, a symbol palette and realtime collaboration by supporting NetMeeting, a spokesman said. Those features will allow users to convert hand-drawn circles, squares and other shapes, as well as bold copy and lines, into perfect shapes. Onionskins, a new review function, provides transparent overlays to files, enabling multiple users to annotate and mark up files. Used in conjunction with the NetMeeting capability, Grafigo will allow changes made by one person to be immediately viewed by all team colleagues over the Internet, the spokeswoman added.

Other collaboration platform vendors are exploiting the Tablet PC's mobile, wireless and pen-input capabilities.

Groove Networks' Groove 2.5 upgraded collaboration platform, due by year's end, will support Tablet PC's ink-enabled features, sources said. "Instead of typing into your message window, you write [in Groove's chat panel" sources said, noting, however, that Groove 2.5 will not be bundled with the Tablet PC hardware.

KeyLogix, Auckland, New Zealand, will unveil next week an automated document creation application for the tablet PC called ActiveDocs. Used in conjunction with Office XP Pack, ActiveDocs is targeted at mobile information workers and enables handwritten or "ink" responses to be instantly transformed into highly accurate professional documents. It will be available Nov. 7.

In mid-2003, Peabody, Mass.-based ScanSoft plans to debut new versions of its OmniForms e-forms application and PaperPort personal document management application, which exploit the features of the Tablet PC, executives said. For example, the company will add to OmniForms 6 integrated support for handwriting, which can then be converted into ASCII text. In addition, the company will integrate automated speech-recognition capabilities that will enable users of the Tablet PC to navigate fields in forms using the microphone on the Tablet PC, executives said.

The next version of PaperPort, also due in mid-2003, will allow users to search for content created in the Windows Journal note-taking features of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and office documents with handwritten content.

Dan Kusnetzky, vice president of system software research at IDC, said it remains to be seen how much benefit an ISV will gain by enhancing programs to make them ink-aware, but that functionality offers compelling value to all mobile warriors and any workers that need to be unshackled from their desks.

"The vertical market ISVs may find some benefit in providing better pen input, allowing mobile knowledge and transactional workers to use the Tablet PC. This need might need to be balanced against providing similar support to handheld devices," said Kusnetzky. "I think that this device will be of great interest to mobile, transaction-oriented workers within organizations and, to some smaller extent, the mobile knowledge workers."

Many of these applications will be bundled on Tablet PCs out of the box, giving solution providers and systems integrators much-needed, value-added extensions to the Windows XP and Office XP platform.

For example, OEMs will bundle the Office XP Pack and other tools, including Adobe's Acrobat plug-in. In addition, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba will bundle a digital magazine reader created by Zinio Systems, Brisbane, Calif., that enables users to read, annotate, circle, highlight and e-mail text and content from magazines over wireless networks. Some OEMs, however, are waiting for ISVs to bring out finished applications before considering other bundles.

Vendors and solution providers hope the Tablet PC will drive some momentum in the soft tech spending sector, said Rick Sherlund, a Microsoft analyst at Goldman Sachs. It's unclear how well the Tablet PC will sell in a down economy, but "Microsoft is expecting an uptake of about 10 percent of laptop sales within three years," Sherlund said. "It will generate some buzz for the industry. The people I talk to are pretty excited."

The Tablet PC offers as many opportunities for channel partners as it does for ISVs, some say.

"The Tablet PC comes at the right time, as Internet and wireless networking become more ubiquitous and affordable and as businesses move computing capabilities beyond the desktop," said Robert Weideman, chief marketing officer at ScanSoft. He noted that the e-forms application will appeal to mobile professionals in the insurance, utility, airlines, medical equipment and manufacturing industries. "This is a perfect sell for VARs because they can go in and sell a mobile solution that is tied to office productivity applications."

Ingram Micro plans to begin shipping Tablet PC products that include the new Microsoft operating systems after Comdex and will be distributing Tablet PC software and additional applications after the launch, said Jeff Ganoe, director of systems and product management at the distributor.

Jeff Geraci, director of business development at Advanced Data Research, an Amber Hills, Mich.-based solution provider, maintains that the Tablet PC will offer many channel opportunities in data collection and wireless transmission of data in vertical segments. For instance, in the health-care industry, a salesman typically has 90 seconds to pitch a doctor. "With the tablet PC, the salesman can have all his required documents available to make maximum use of his time. In the insurance industry, they can be used for damage assessments or for sales," he added.

But Tablet PCs won't replace paper and pens, said Geraci, who has seen the Acer, HP and Fujitsu models. "Microsoft says they will replace paper for professionals," he said. "We don't see it that way. We've been in pen-based computing since 1989. These won't replace paper."

Like many systems integrators and solution providers, HP's services arm has several go-to-market plans in support of the Tablet PC in vertical and horizontal markets. One executive said availability of applications from Microsoft and other ISVs is critical for crafting solutions for mobile professionals.

"We have clinician mobility solutions for health care, mobile trading for financial services and manufacturing quality-control solutions," said Rick Fricchione, vice president of enterprise Microsoft services at HP. "Clearly, the Tablet PC allows for a more capable platform to be available for a new class of users that might not have been notebook fans or adequately served by PocketPC platforms, such as lawyers, physicians and clinicians."

Cap Gemini Ernst and Young is also homing in on vertical opportunities. "We have some real interest in the pharmaceutical industry for sales force effectiveness applications. They will probably be executive toys as well," said John Parkinson, vice president and chief technologist at Cap Gemini. "The devices will only work if they replace a PDA and a notebook PC. Battery life is an issue, as is ruggedness. [And these tablet PCs absolutely must have robust wireless connectivity. "

One solution provider that serves the Florida state government said the Tablet PC, Tablet PC Windows XP Edition and related applications offer value as long as the platform works as advertised.

"The killer application for our customer base will be an app that lets them reduce the amount of paper they carry around by providing a viable alternative to printed reports and documentation for reading," said Mark Alexander, president of ISC, a Tallahassee, Fla.-based Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. "I have customers that produce and transport boxes upon boxes of reports to meetings around the state of Florida because there isn't a viable substitute when they are relying on these reports for making decisions, comparing one to the other, and rapidly moving from one report to another during an engaging discussion. This killer app would need to be something other than one of the book reader apps out there now."

Others are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

"It is a bit early to tell yet. In terms of serious demand, however, we have an entire practice area in our business that specializes in software development for the residential construction industry. That is the area where I see real potential application for the Tablet PC, although there are certainly barriers--namely, price," said Michael Cocanower, president of ITSynergy, a solution provider in Phoenix. "Can the Tablet PC hold up to the extremely harsh conditions in the field, and can you deliver enough functionality to absorb the cost of the device and still provide a good ROI on the project? I'm not sure that has been proven yet."

Meanwhile, OEMs are preparing Tablet PCs for the launch next week. While many models are expected to be ready to ship, the recent port strike on the West Coast will delay delivery of at least some tablet PCs that were expected on shelves in early November, sources say.

Electrovaya, a Toronto-based mobile computing battery vendor, is having Tablet PCs built for it by a Taiwan-based vendor. Those PCs will feature batteries that give them runtimes of up to 15 hours, said CEO Sankar Das Gupta.

Acer's TravelMate C102Ti is a convertible unit with a keyboard built under the 10.4-inch LCD. The screen can be rotated for portrait or landscape mode; the main unit sits on a desk.

ViewSonic will offer the Tablet PC V1100, a slate-style product that sits in the hand, has no built-in keyboard and has a 10.4-inch LCD, said Tom Offutt, general manager for the company's Mobile and Wireless Division. An optional extended battery will allow up to six hours of runtime, he said.

Motion Computing, an Austin, Texas-based startup, is offering a slate-style model using a 12.1-inch display--the only vendor to do so, said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales for the company.

HP is not releasing details of its Tablet PC, to be sold under the Compaq name, but Ted Clark, vice president of new markets for the company's Notebook Global Business Unit, said it will include a mechanical keyboard. However, it will not be a convertible model.

All vendors said they expect the channel to account for the vast majority of sales, with a small percentage going direct to consumers. A couple have build-to-order plans.

Motion Computing's systems are configured to solution provider order in Taiwan by Compal, the world's largest notebook PC maker and an investor in the company, and shipped to the VAR or its customer within six working days of the order being placed, said Spagnola.

AOpen will not produce Tablet PCs until March of next year, even though it has units ready, said Ken Wang, product manager. By then, the company will have a build-to-order program available, allowing solution providers to specify memory, hard drive and wireless options.