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A little more than five years ago, the Tablet PC, along with Microsoft Windows XP Tablet Edition, was introduced with great hype and greater expectations from vendors. At the launch event, presenters ranging from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates to author Amy Tan to actor Rob Lowe all explained how the Tablet would revolutionize our working lives. The time had come for pen-based computing, they proclaimed. More powerful hardware, combined with Microsoft's new operating system and pen-enabled applications, would make a combination that was too compelling to pass by.

Given the long parade of failed pen-based systems coming before this launch (including one a decade before from Microsoft), there was skepticism despite Microsoft and its partners' insistence that computer hardware was now up to the high demands of pen-based systems.

Gartner Dataquest painted a less-than-rosy picture. It predicted that Tablets would only account for about 1.2 per cent of the portable PC market in 2003, noting that lack of application support, clumsy hardware design and high prices would prove barriers to widespread adoption. It saw the Tablet as a niche product that was only a good fit in certain vertical markets.

And indeed, Gartner was right.

According to IDC Canada, in 2005, the Tablet still only accounted for 1.2 per cent of the portable market, and for the first three quarters of 2007, it had only crept up a bit, to 1.5 per cent.

Granted, the absolute numbers have grown – the portable market is considerably bigger than it was five years ago – but the Tablet PC still only claims a tiny fraction of portable computer sales.

So why, one asks, has the notoriously conservative Dell Inc. finally decided to introduce its own Tablet, the Latitude XT?

According to Dell Canada's Latitude brand manager, Natalie Artioukh, the company has been playing with the idea for a couple of years, and one of the most important reasons that made it finally take the leap was the introduction of Windows Vista, which has Tablet functionality baked in to the operating system.

Another driver is, naturally, customer demand. “A lot of business customers are looking for Tablet functionality,” she said. “Customers hadn't said they wanted Tablets in the past, but now they are. Users want to be more mobile, and do more.”

Historically, Tablets have been popular in vertical markets such as education, and healthcare, and among field workers. Dell tweaked existing designs to, it hopes, make the Tablet more attractive to all sorts of user and pull it out of its niches. First, it uses the convertible form factor, which allows users to switch the unit from Tablet to standard laptop in seconds.

Instead of the normal resistive digitizer in the touch screen, it opted for a more expensive capacitive digitizer, which allows customers to use either the special pen or simply the touch of a finger to interact with the machine in Tablet mode. With resistive digitizers, users are tied to the pen; all fingers do is smudge the screen. It also created a slim secondary battery that fastens to the bottom of the unit and doubles its battery life to up to nine hours (depending on usage, of course).

Elliot Katz, senior product manager, Windows client at Microsoft Canada, believes that several other factors will also increase Tablet acceptance. He said, “For organizations, the fact that you don't need to buy a separate OS provides the flexibility to choose the hardware that's best for the individual needs.” The growth of wireless hotspots, allowing anywhere, any-time computing and (particularly in healthcare) the growing number of Tablet PC solutions and pen-friendly applications are also making the technology more acceptable, he noted.

But is it enough?

IDC Canada research analyst Eddie Chan isn't entirely convinced. While he agrees that Windows Vista makes life much easier for enterprises, who now don't need to manage a separate image for their Tablet PCs, there are still barriers to widespread adoption.

“The physical reality is that you can't have all day battery life without compromising weight,” he said.

Price is also an issue, with Tablet PCs still costing significantly more than similarly configured standard laptops. Dell's Latitude XT, for example, starts at $2499, while its Latitude D430 ultra light laptop, with the same processor and screen size, starts at $1855. Said Chan, “The question is, what is the perceived value of pen computing? Is it $400, or is it $900?”

“The vision is there,” he went on, “but not all of the pieces are in place: form factor, processors, energy consumption, battery life and weight. It will take some time to ramp up. And we need more vendors to build applications to support the Tablet. I think we will slowly get there, but as it stands, it's still predominantly a niche product.”