Lenovo: looking at enterprise tablets?

Seeing their competitors taking interest in the dedicated professional tactile tablet segment has led the Chinese group Lenovo to also try their luck in this market.

Market analysts are still undecided about the potential for tactile tablets within enterprise, but numerous companies are nevertheless working on the development of such products. The Apple iPad tablet, while initially oriented towards general public use, is being sort out by enterprises to evaluate, at least initially, the advantages of such devices.

Numerous companies have announced that they would be developing such solutions and its US carrier AT&T who has announced that they will be distributing iPad’s specifically aimed at professionals.

In addition to the general public uses of this tablet, numerous companies have decided to launch tablets that are aimed at professional use. The American network manufacturer Cisco has opened the ball with their Cisco Cius tablet first seen a few months ago, with their idea being to support roaming users with video conference options – one of the manufacturer’s specialities.

This is one of the first tablets to operate Android, despite the limitations of Android 2.x on tablets, although this should improve with the imminent arrival of Android 3.0 Gingerbread, which a lot of manufacturers have been waiting for before releasing their products.

For professional use, Windows 7 seems to be awaited, thanks to the presence of Windows which fits with existing enterprise platforms, and the complementary options that a tablet can provide.

From HP, we are still waiting for their HP Slate to be released, with a prototype of this device having been presented during the CES show in Las Vegas in January 2010, before disappearing from circulation before returning with the unofficial name of HP Slate 500.


Projects are starting to firm up
A double strategy of WebOS for the general public/Windows 7 for professionals seems to be under development by HP, but this still needs to be confirmed. Steve Ballmer has promised tablets would be announced running Windows 7 before the end of the year, although it seems that the Chinese group Lenovo are also looking to offer tablets to the professional market.

While the company stated at the beginning of the year that the tablet format wasn’t necessarily adapted to everyone (professional or not), this hasn’t prevented them from developing their own general public Android powered tablet nicknamed the Lenovo LePad.

According to Taiwanese sources, Lenovo is looking at offering a series of professional tablets in their ThinkPad range, with negotiations under way to find an assembler. At this time, it appears that Wistron and Compal Electronics stand a good chance of earning contracts.

The OS to be used isn’t yet known but we can only think that Lenovo will turn to Windows 7, one of its competitors. As for the LePad tablet, which was planned for release by the end of the year, waiting for the future version of Android has meant that its launch will now being the first quarter of 2011.