The mobile phenomena, our gadget-coupled love affair with ubiquitous broadband, is hitting the market in a variety of ways, some expected and some a bit strange. There are likely stranger ones on tap, too, which is what you’d expect of a revolution. And for sure, the big revolution of the decade is mobile broadband.
One impact that’s predictable is a decline in PC sales. The problem is that we can’t be sure how much of a decline we’re seeing (Gartner and IDC seem to disagree on whether it’s worse than expected) or what exactly is driving it. We do know that people are buying tablets more and more, and my own research says that young people would rather have a tablet as their first gadget than a PC (they want a smartphone more than either one, though). The big “however” here is that it’s pretty clear that the smartphone doesn’t directly impact the PC market and it’s likely the tablet is having only a modest broad-market impact.
There’s a lot of hype in this space. What I think is provably happening is that users are dividing their activities into two distinct zones, one representing periods when they need to be productive and the other periods when they simply need to absorb information. For the former they need a keyboard whose performance matches their entry skills or they lose time. For the latter they need a tablet. As long as these two zones are distinct, as long as users aren’t unexpectedly moving between them, then it’s not necessary to have a common device to support both and tablet sales would not be expected to kick the props from under the laptop.
How about the cloud? Doesn’t matter in this picture, because the question isn’t where the application or data storage is, it’s what the user’s relationship with the data could be. What does, or could, matter is something like Microsoft’s Surface. If a tablet could be linked to the cloud and made a suitable platform for data entry by adding a functional keyboard, then it could become the prime platform for more users. Not all, probably. In my own world I use a laptop almost daily, and the same with a tablet, but for heavy spreadsheet and graphics/presentation work I need to attach a trackball or move to a desktop system. Why? Not because it wouldn’t be impossible to use a tablet or a laptop and touchpad, but because it wouldn’t be PRODUCTIVE.
If mobile broadband is driving all of this, then what’s next? One answer may come from the NYC plan to install WiFi hotspots in phone booths. There aren’t many of these out there now, but the plan could generate ten thousand or more over time. If this sort of thing happens, then it has major consequences on mobile broadband use and behavior because it encourages a sharp divide between “mobile” and “migratory” behavior. We’re mobile when we’re moving; we’re migratory when we’re roosted in a sequence of places.
Since WiFi hotspots have limited range, they’ll encourage a migratory behavior pattern. I’ve seen this from Alaska to Europe already; people lounging outside a public library or other WiFi location to get access. The question is whether they’ve come there to do something specific, a “productivity” app, or whether they stopped there to play a video somebody emailed them and want a bigger form factor than their phone. If most casual tablet use is information sipping, then tablets can gain ground. If most is planned access there’s an implication of productivity intent, and laptops (or, probably, ultrabooks or netbooks) may win back some followers. So here’s a test for you New Yorkers to help me with; see what kind of device people are using around those phone books.