Tablets at 10 paces

Everyone wants a slice of the tablet market, pioneered earlier this year by Apple and its iPad.

Overnight, telco giant Telstra released a fuzzy picture of a device that it is set to launch in November, called the T-Touch. As Patrick Stafford reports today, details are still very sketchy, but apparently there are going to be two versions, and it will definitely run on Google’s Android system.

In the last week there’s been plenty of talk about Telstra and its ability to transform itself from a telco into… well… anything else. In that light it’s very interesting to see this tablet move, which comes soon after the release of the T-Hub (a sort of household mobile internet device) and the T-Box (a set-top-box that delivers content via the internet).

Could the telco be turning itself into an electronics company?

This isn’t the intention of course – what Telstra really wants is to create and offer devices which it allow it to sell other voice, data and content services.

However, the company is clearly trying to come up with a suite of branded products that will put it in competition with everyone from Apple and Samsung to Sony and Nintendo.

Good thing Telstra is used to competing in crowded, competitive markets, I’d say.

That Telstra has joined the tablet tsunami is also interesting. Clearly, this is an emerging market, but it’s also a largely untested on.

For example, while we’ve seen some interesting business uses for tablet computers (the iPad menu being one of the more prominent), it’s not clear to me that a tablet is an essential business tool, in the same way the smartphone and the notebook are.

This will probably change over time, but Telstra and others really need to see a rapid take-up of tablets, rather than just sampling by early adopters.

It will be an interesting few years for tablet sellers, be they electronics giants, IT giants or telecommunications giants.