Right now a lot of people are waiting anxiously for the 2011 edition of the big Consumer Electronics Show. In recent years, the show has been pared down a bit by the exclusivity of many announcements made by companies at their own events. However, this year with the boon of the tablet market in 2010 and so many companies hoping to get off to a strong start in 2011, I’m expecting quite the laundry list of interesting news out of the US in a couple weeks.
I’ve already mentioned the potential announcements that Microsoft has up its sleeve. No one is entirely sure if Ballmer will show off a revamped Windows 7 or if he has something entirely new on the docket. One thing is certain, though. After 2010’s CES, he needs to come out swinging and show off an OS that will truly compete with iOS, the upcoming Honeycomb from Android and possibly even RIM’s Playbook OS, all expected sometime in spring/summer 2011. I love Windows, but I just don’t think it can compete with the touch-oriented operating systems that everyone else is working with right now.
But, then we have Intel’s recently released documents showing that many major manufacturers including Toshiba, Lenovo, Dell, Fujitsu, and Asus are all working on Windows tablets for release in 2011. It will be interesting to see what comes of all these new projects and how many of them we will see at CES 2011.
We’re also seeing some snippets of news leak out from a variety of companies that will likely be announcing new products at CES. A Sony device recently won FCC approval for Bluetooth and Wireless connectivity as a tablet – not much is known about the device yet, but it looks to be a hefty device both in size and specifications. We won’t know for sure until January.
Other known announcements we will see include a Motorola Honeycomb tablet (likely with 4G) recently teased at in an internal event for the company. The new device has been referred to as the Everest and Motorola is already whipping out the quips against Apple’s iPad Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and their pared down computing experiences. Will we get to see exactly what kind of horsepower the Honeycomb tablet OS actually holds or will Google continue to hold back details further into the year?
And then there is everyone else. NEC is slated to show their dual screen tablet, while Notion Ink will hopefully give everyone a chance to actually lay hands on the Adam and ensure it is in fact the real deal. And there are always surprises. If 2010 was the year of the tablet, CES 2011 looks to be the celebration with almost every major consumer electronics company in the world bringing its A-game to Las Vegas.
4 comments:
What is stop[ping tablets from syncing with two devices at the same time via bluetooth? Like a watch/controller and some wireless bluetooth headphones?
Hi Arnaldo,
it's a great comment but it actually goes against what a Tablet actually does, i.e. it's a stand alone PC. For syncing there are many apps for this for example, PST sync (for outlook), OneNote 2007 (for OneNote notes over many PCs) and many more..including cloud apps. The Tablet should replace your notebook or desktop, then there is no syncing needed! :-)
Hey Hugo, what's up? You have some unbiased overview on the tablet OS situation. Now, what's up with Microsoft? I was looking forward to "project Currier", because it was the only possible decent competition to iOS then they killed it. I don't know, I think that guy Ballmer is too old fashioned. Hey and by the way, I told you a while ago there were no such thing as global warming ;) See?
Hi martins2012,
I think project courier had a short future as it found it hard to change and adapt to the rapid changing market. I don't think (and read between the lines here) that Microsoft, with all it's R&D budget, won't let a true "touch OS" slip by!
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