Get Ready for an Avalanche of Tablets in 2011

As they say in boxing circles, here’s the tale of the tape: Apple has sold more than 20 million iPads since they went on sale last January. Samsung is reporting more than 1 million Galaxy Tab sold in the first month on the market. And scores of vendors are racing to put their version of touch screen tablet computers on the market.

If you think those numbers are impressive, consider this: Asian manufacturers are gearing up to produce more than 100 million tablets in 2011.

DigiTimes reported last week that the manufacturers contracted by PC vendors have ordered anywhere between 20 million and 30 million tablets for delivery in 2011. It’s not an unfathomable number. In addition to Samsung, several other vendors have or are planning release of tablet or tablet-like devices, including Dell, Toshiba, Motorola, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and ViewSonic.

Computer vendors are trying to steal a little momentum from Apple, which produced the first commercially viable tablet. The early contender is the Samsung Tab, which is currently keeping pace with the iPad in initial sales. However, none of these vendors can seem to compete with the current lead and projected growth of the iPad. On top of the 20 million to 25 million iPads already sold, Apple has reportedly asked its manufacturing partner Foxconn to produce as many as 70 million iPads next year.

That means a potential flood of 100 million tablets in the next 12 months, with nearly three out of four iPads.  

Some more realistic forecasts place 2011 tablet shipments between 35 million and 45 million, with Apple still controlling two-thirds of the sales.

Tablets aren’t purely a consumer product. All IT vendors have recognized the commercial appeal of these lightweight devices to enterprise users who appreciate the battery life, lightweight, ease-of-use and sleek designs. Rather than having to carry around multiple devices, tablets provide users with multifunction devices for professional and personal uses.

Solution providers aren’t be left out of this boom market opportunity. Apple is actively recruiting systems integrators to bring its devices into enterprise deployments. Carriers are providing enterprise contracts to solution providers and enterprises wanting to buy tablets on extended contracts. And data center and virtualization specialists are finding opportunity by integrating backend applications via virtualization to tablet devices.

Apple, which hasn’t traditionally been a channel-friendly company, is discovering how solution providers can find new and interesting ways to make its devices a part of the enterprise fabric. As one newly minted Mac reseller said, Apple is completely unprepared for the enterprise opportunity the channel is bringing it.

The tablet opportunity is there for solution providers, but getting into the tablet game isn’t necessarily easy, especially if you want to sell iPads. Apple has stringent qualifications and commitment standards for solution providers before they can sell iPads. One iPad reseller said Apple made them jump through three rounds of screening and rejections before authorizing them to sell MacBooks. They will have to reach certain revenue thresholds before being authorized to sell iPads. Even then, they will have to commit to selling at least $100,000 worth of machines to attain authorization, the reseller said.

Tablets are opening new opportunities, but they will require investments by solution providers. Unlike the former PC and notebook markets, the tablet universe isn’t homogenously Microsoft Windows. Apple is running iOS 3 and soon iOS 4 on its iPads. Motorola, Dell and Cisco are running Android on their machines. And Hewlett-Packard is expected to release a tablet based on the Palm WebOS platform. This diversity could create a barrier to entry for some solution providers, as well as create a nightmare for supporting customers with multiple devices in their fleets.

Some observers are calling tablet computers a fad. Even if it is, it’s a $15 billion to $25 billion global market opportunity, and that makes it attractive to everyone in the IT value chain.