Calling All Tablet Makers: Can Anyone Beat Apple's iPad?

The latest to come to the table is Samsung, which earlier this summer had confirmed a Galaxy tablet was on the way. Earlier this week, what appeared to be a leaked European firmware update revealed that the tablet, Samsung's P1000 Galaxy Tab, will run Google Android 2.2, along with several other specific details about its size, display and processing power.

But with little else known about the tablet -- and little in the way of hot, iPad-killing rumors to hang any real momentum on -- it's hard to muster much enthusiasm for Samsung beyond that the vendor is cementing its place among manufacturers churning out slick-looking Android devices at breakneck speed.

The iPad's cooling effects in other PC categories are being felt as well. Asus, for example, has very publicly lowered shipping estimates for its Eee netbooks based on iPad's impact on the market. And Apple could be getting ready to strike again. Several news outlets, including two Taiwan-based newspapers, have reported on a potential 7-inch iPad landing by Christmas.

The problem for many competitors, it seems, is that they can't get out of their own way. For many, it's a matter of confusion: Is an HP tablet on the way, and will it run Windows 7 or the WebOS platform it acquired with Palm? Is Dell's snazzy new Streak a smartphone or a tablet, and is Dell sacrificing momentum with Streak by trying to appeal to both smartphone and tablet consumers? Does RIM really have a tablet -- BlackPad -- in its arsenal or is it trying to hold on to buzz, any buzz, as its once-mighty BlackBerry line faces attacks from all sides and its popularity sputters?

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Maybe it's time for HP, Dell and all of the other major tablet players to take a lesson from a rather unlikely source: Cisco. Its Cisco Cius device, which the company unveiled at Cisco Live in Las Vegas at the end of June, has managed to garner a healthy amount of buzz, a minimum of backlash and plenty of curious stares -- and it won't even be available until January 2011 at the earliest.

So how did Cisco do it? Slick-looking device, running with a hot OS (Android), promising at least as many bells and whistles as iPad, the promise of 4G services, and a hook that makes its appeal for enterprise customers obvious: It nestles right into Cisco's unified communications portfolio, supported by Cisco's Unified Communications Manager and providing support for Cisco Quad and a range of other Cisco collaboration tools.

Sure, it may not compete immediately as a consumer device to rival iPad: No pricing has been announced yet, Cisco is a new tablet player, and Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers has said it's not intended as an iPad competitor.

But for many tablet makers, especially Apple's major competitors, enterprise mobile device dominance is a holy grail, and the lines between what's definitively "consumer" and what's definitively "business" are getting blurrier and blurrier. Cius is an iPad challenger, and thus far, the most interesting one out there.