The latest E-Reader and Slate news has the leading European mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is working on its own secret tablet and Slate PC, scheduled to reach stores later this year. Nokia has neither confirmed nor denied this startling new development, but industry experts agree it is in development.
Nokia is not alone in wanting to release a Slate PC this year. Major electronics companies and computer manufacturers such as Samsung, Dell, and HP are working on similar slate and tablet PC devices.
On April the 3rd 2010, Apple sold more than 300,000 iPad’s on the tablet computer’s first day in stores, a strong showing that roughly matched industry forecasts and mirrored the iPhone ‘s debut in 2007. With Apple setting the bar for Slate’s and Tablet sales in 2010 many companies are wanting to jump in right away, and with good reason. Slate PC’s are a natural evolution of the netbook and laptop. Netbook’s never really caught on that well, but for portable computing, slates blow netbooks out of the way with their processing and storage.
The tremendous success of the Apple iPhone totally caught Nokia off guard, and it took almost two years for the Finnish firm to roll out its first mobile model with a large touch screen.
Nokia last year attempted to enter the PC industry when it introduced its first laptop. It has sold small phone-like devices for browsing the Internet since 2005, but with very limited success.
If you are not familiar with Nokias foray into a PC it made a touchscreen in 2005 called the 770. The 770 ran Maemo and was more of a PDA than a laptop, designed to be used with a stylus. It was awkward to try to use and should never have made it past the prototype stage.
Right now the supply chain for the Nokia Tablet is gearing up for a fall release. It has to be on the shelf by September-October to meet the Christmas Holiday rush season, which saw Amazon last year sell over two million e-readers in December.
Some rumours speculate that the Nokia Slate will run Microsoft’s Window 7 Mobile software but others persist that Nokia might be using its own MeeGo operating system. This new OS was made in conjunction with Intel.
Nokia cannot afford to miss another golden opportunity in developing its own rival slate/tablet pc. They missed out on the IPHONE phase while other companies like RIM took advantage of the market share with their Blackberry Storm and others with Google Android devices. If Nokia is to make a run at the slate market, they have to do it in the last six months, or else Apple will cornerstone the market.
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Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
