Tablets are in the news at the moment. A lot. In the sales and marketing world, Christmas has clearly begun and the speed with which these fancy new products are being released is pretty staggering. The volume of attendant advertising is equally abundant. Last Christmas the tablet market was pretty large - and the big winners turned out to be Apple's iPad, Samsung's Galaxy Tab, and Amazon's Kindle.
This year the size and value of the global tablet market is set to be?humongous - and this week's many product launches signal the beginning of the frenzied battle to sell as many devices as possible.
Hence,?Apple has just released an updated iPad (fourth generation) and their highly anticipated iPad mini. Meanwhile Microsoft's Surface tablet is also in stores now, as are Google's new Nexus 10 and Nexus 7 tablets.?Amazon have finally expanded the availability of their Kindle Fire device so that it is now available in various territories (previously only sold in the US).
And these are just the most high profile releases which I expect will sell in the highest numbers over the coming weeks. There's also the Nook device from Barnes & Noble, new devices from Lenovo, Motorola and plenty more...
All in all the trend is clear - sometime around 2015-16 tablets will take over from notebooks as the most popular device for mobile computing. And when we say mobile computing - that includes everything from internet shopping to social networking, from relaxing with a book or a film to booking trips and working.
Most businesses, of all sizes, now make extensive use of the web in how they deliver products and services to customers. Having negotiated the disruption to traditional sales models brought on by the web, they are now having to adapt to the new challenge of mobile computing.
The problem isn't only faced by small companies - even Facebook, a web company from the beginning, is famously struggling with the problem of adapting its revenue model in the age of the smartphone mobile app. What's kept them going has been the fact that browser-based use (on notebooks and desktops) has nonetheless remained high and provided a steady base from which to tackle the tricky challenge of mobile.
But over the next few years this steady ground provided by notebook and desktop, browser-based access will disappear - for Facebook and for every other business which makes use of the web. Come that day, those without viable mobile and tablet apps will struggle to maintain their contact with customers and clients, ultimately losing sales and revenue.
Most people I know (myself included) currently don't do any sort of 'high-stakes' stuff with a tablet device. Casual browsing, yes. Booking expensive flights, for example, no. This is simply because the web interfaces of airline websites don't work as well on a tablet with a smaller screen, making a booking mistake much more likely (I know many people who've booked flights for the wrong day/name because the site they used wasn't designed for a tablet).
However, as notebooks become less dominant, companies will be increasingly unable to get away with not having either a tablet app for all the major tablet operating systems or a website which is also optimised for 10" and 7" tablet screens (and any other sizes that emerge as market standards).
So here's a tip for business owners for this year's build-up to Christmas. Every time you see another advert for a tablet device on TV or in a newspaper, try to imagine the hundreds of thousands of people who will soon be opening up such a device on Christmas day - and then imagine these people are your customers and they want to access/purchase something from you using their tablet.?If this scenario induces a mild sense of unease and/or panic, then now is the time to review how your business will function online in the fast-approaching age of tablet domination.
?
peyton florida state meghan mccain wilson chandler bristol motor speedway puerto rico prometheus
No comments:
Post a Comment