iPad a notebook killer?

Posted by Eric Jacksch on Jul 14, 2011 in Business, Technology | 0 comments

As I sit here on my morning flight from Ottawa to London I’m contemplating my words of a year ago. I was wrong. The iPad is going to put a serious dent in the notebook market due to the convergence of multiple factors:

1) The iPad is beyond cool – it’s affordably cool. While the device may cost the same as netbooks and low-end laptops, consider the apps. $10 gets you Keynote — which last night flawlessly slurped in a .pptx from Microsoft PowerPoint. I put my final touches on today’s presentation and emailed myself both a .ppt and .pdf of the presentation.

2) As a device for mobile users, the iPad is light, has a battery life easily twice that of most laptops, and is virtually instant-on. The main drawback for writers is the on-screen keyboard, but with Bluetooth keyboard support the number of options continues to increase.

3) Mobile phone operators are slowly starting to provide affordable data plans for the iPad. In Canada they generally continue to screw their customers – the original $30 for 6GB iPhone plans are nowhere to be seen, but good deals will hopefully return as additional competitors enter the market.

4) Cloud computing is making remote access to virtual computers a cost-effective reality. With Citrix and Windows Remote Desktop clients available for the iPad, connecting to a remote computer with resources that far exceed that of any laptop is not only possible – it is about to become a commodity.

5) For many companies, the days of 3-year laptop refresh cycles are over as they seek all possible cost reductions. As a result, a new generation of workers are emerging: Those who are sick of lugging around heavy, old, and frustratingly slow laptops that have a negative impact on their productivity. (These same companies appear oblivious to the productivity losses and morale issues caused by their failure to provide decent tools to their employees, but let’s save that for another article.) Some workers now choose to use their own computer for work – and for many the iPad and virtual machine solution will be a winner. Some firms are embracing this, including updating their infrastructure to support corporate email on a variety of employee-owned devices.

In short, expect laptop sales to decline.

Apple seems to get this too — you won’t need a Mac or PC to set up, backup, or use your iPad or iPhone with this fall’s release of iOS 5.