Over 100 tablets were unveiled at CES 2011 – here’s a list of all of them

Retarded Comment

It isn’t a matter of keeping some for themselves. It is a matter of securing profits. If Apple is giving you $1 Billion for whatever parts are you going to take that money. Or wait three years to see if you can sell enough of whatever product to make the equivalent amount of money from that product?

This is why Apple has such a huge advantage being the first mover. These types of contracts are what effectively killed all competitors in the MP3 space.

Of course I am sure. What do any of these companies possess that would drive million upon million to their sole device?

Ecosystem?
Software?
Enterprise interest?

Apple has been building their ecosystem for years
Available software for the iPad alone is already over 60,000 Apps
Enterprise has huge hooks into iPad adoption or piloting already

Can Motorola, LG and HTC all make great products? Absolutely they can, they have in the past and they will continue in the future. What they lack though are the things that I listed above.

Apple has been moving in this direction for 10 years. They didn’t start their Tablet plans on January 28th 2010 like everyone else. Apple has been planning this for years.

Everyone keeps regurgitating the talk about all of these companies working on something better than the iPad for the past year. That is all well and good but Apple has also been working on something better than the iPad for longer than this last year.

What these companies should have done is figure out what Apple would do for version two. Then they should have made certain to deliver that product before Apple. Until someone beats Apple to the market with the “Next” product Apple is going to do nothing but roll and grow. As they grow their money grows. As their money grows so grows the ability to freeze people out of markets.

Huge hooks into iPad adoption or piloting already?

Who? Which industry? I’m an IT architect for one of the 10 largest N.A. financial institutions, and chat regularly with my couterparts at other firms (not just other FIs). We all have the same position when it comes to iPads (and other slates for that matter). Nice. Neat. Show me the business case that it will replace an existing device otherwise it’s a net add and quite frankly we’re not interested in adding to support costs. Until then it’ll be considered a personal device which you can go out and buy for yourself and we’ll sandbox your access to company resources, so enjoy.

As for the next i??? killer. The only one that will ever build that is Apple themselves. The media really needs to stop thinking that anyone else has that as their primary objective. Android devices will do just fine, Windows 7 devices will do the same, and iOS will keep on going just as it has today. The IT world is more than big enough for all those and more. Each has its own niche user community and they will all continue to take jabs at each other.

@TheNewReign In your opinion, why is the tablet OS market so different from the personal computer market, where Apple builds some of the nicest hardware and software, but suffers from weak overall market share. What’s being done differently that makes up for their success in this area other than having first mover advantage.

Okay, so we will start with 1984 when the GUI was first brought to the mass market by Apple’s Macintosh. Very slow start, not a lot of software but Apple had the advantage of having the only commercially available GUI on the market. For 10 years Apple had this advantage.

What happened? Well, in 1985 Apple Fired Steve Jobs and went ahead with John Sculley’s plans. Sculley was a sales guy, not a product guy. So for ten years Apple didn’t really do anything. In 1995 Microsoft’s GUI alternative came along and exploded. Microsoft already had a huge advantage because of their enterprise penetration. Once companies have poured billions and billions of dollars into infrastructure that is dependent on your software they are not going to change course suddenly. They keep patching what they have with what you are selling. This is why Windows is so prevalent.

Now, Apple is gaining in the PC space as far as the consumer is concerned and they will continue to gain share there but as far as the enterprise market goes, Microsoft has that sown up for as long as long can be. Apple does enjoy over 80% market share for PC’s that cost $1,000 or more.

Apple took this lesson to heart when they brought Steve Jobs back in 1996. Actually, Steve put it in their heart for them. In 1998 Steve Jobs let the company know, “In ten years Apple is going to be the largest consumer electronics company on the planet”. iPod started things and the iTunes store gave them the product they needed to dominate.

Like a business you spend money on your media (maybe not you per se but 80% of people do) and most people get their digital media from iTunes. Apple uses iTunes as their “lock”. I use that loosely because people seem to enjoy the hardware products and continue to use them one after another. But let us not be naive, iTunes is a lock that Apple uses to make certain that your next digital gadget is an Apple product. This is why Apple will dominate the Tablet space, just like with iPod.

Apple has 4% of the cell phone market but accounts for 50% of all the profits
Apple has 9% of the PC Market

Huge growth potential for both. More than anything it is the formula that keeps them growing and that formula is simple and is fluid:

Open new stores
New customers buy their first Apple product
New customers become paying iTunes customers
Next products are most likely sold by Apple

Rince and repeat. As long as Apple keeps opening stores, signing up new customers to iTunes and sees those new customers return for other Apple products their growth will continue and probably one accelerate. the $60 Billion they have in cash will become $80-$90 Billion by this years end.

2011 Apple ships:
16-20 Million Macs
25-35 Million iPod Touches
35-50 Million iPads
60-80 Million iPhones

More than they shipped in 2010 but not as many as they will ship in 2012. When the story is finally complete everyone will marvel at how much more dominant Apple was in their “run” than Microsoft was during their “run”.

Apple is successful but they’re not all that…really only on a North American (stress on American) scale.

People don’t realize that Apple is very 1 dimensional as a company, therefore they are the Kings of their own hill. This is why OSX is so protected and no other company is allowed to touch it.

Imagine a scenario where competition was allowed within the Apple Ecosystem? Imagine HP or Dell or Toshiba making a better computer running OSX than Apple?

People talk about how much billions of units Apple sells…of course! You can run Windows on an Apple computer, Apple does not allow you to run OSX on a PC – the ecosystem is locked up and Apple benefits from the fact that so and so million people prefer or have come to depend on OSX.

Within a scenario where if you don’t like the iPhone 4 but want an Apple product you’ll have to either 1. do without it completely or 2. wait until next year – how is Apple going to fail?
Enter: PC user who really holds 0 loyalty. They will buy Dell in 2005, Gateway in 2007, HP in 2010 – this accounts to no real market share gain for these companies beyond the fact they they sell these things globally en masse. It is rare for an Apple user to up and switch to a PC, simply because they can use Windows on their Macs.
Now, I’m not saying that Apple doesn’t make good products because they do, but I feel that there’s a certain illusion of success when it comes to the company.
For one, they’re selling the same components for 1.5 to 2 times more than their PC counterparts (and people buy in to this thinking the quality is “better” when it’s not) and they control ALL the channels for Apple product sales. From the OS all the way down to the hardware running and are now attempting to fully control the software channel as well (apps!).

In the end, the BIGGEST thing Apple has going for them are their fans – not their “great” products…without the loyalists, who the hell would shell out 2.5k for a laptop that may be purchased for 1.5k less in PC flavor? Or phones and mp3 players which lock you into using a single piece of software and a single market to source media from? Or be forced to wait a year for a newer version/updated hardware when they could just buy a different brand and get what they want?

Who needs market share when you’re selling the same product as your competitor for twice the profit?
The only people benefiting from a bigger market share is MS, and they don’t compete with Apple on the same levels. All the PC makers out there are vying for their own piece of the pie which is sliced and chopped between them while Apple enjoys a juicy chunk all for itself.