Samsung launched its Galaxy Galaxy Tab at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin this summer:  its challenge to Apple’s iPad.  It has a 7-inch screen and weighs just 380gr (the iPad weighs 730g and has a 9.7-inch screen) and runs the latest version of Google’s Android operating system.  I had the opportunity to use a beta version during my 1-month summer hiatus (the CTO for an affiliate company seems to get all manner of tech devises to test and loaned it to me) and liked it very much.  In fact, I liked it better than my iPad.  It is good looking, solidly built, lightweight.  The screen is great.  Pixel density superior to the iPad.  Android  processor worked fine.  Easier to handle than the iPad.  I had it on my boat, on the beach, etc.  The apps are very impressive:  very good calendar app, email app that has a dual pane view in landscape [stolen from the iPad ? ], music store and player, and a very cool an e-reading app that I found superior to iPad for everything I downloaded: magazines, newspapers, a ton of e-books).  I didn’t use the custom dialer/contact browsing app much but the video call button is very cool.  

Now, whether the developers will latch onto it we don’t know.  For a nice intro to the Galaxy Tab from CIOonline click here. 

And still in the wings, the big gorilla, Sony.  They have not made any decision yet on making a tablet of their own.  Industry analysts say Sony could deliver far more products than Apple or anybody else can because of its assets and scale.  And one big advantage they have over Apple is that they can cover more ground, as consumers look to share and enjoy content on every device they own, from a digital camera to a 3D TV.  While Apple makes iPods, computers and phones, its best effort at television is the Apple TV set-top box it announced. 

But in this biz it is all about execution so we’ll see.  And Apple has a big jump.  Citrix recently completed an industry survey and some of the results show Apple’s strength: 

-  80% of respondents expect to purchase the iPad for their company. Even more respondents are saying they will support personal iPads for their employees. 

-   This high level of adoption of the mobile device illustrates the confidence IT has that they can provide secure, safe access to company data and virtual desktops. 

-  Support, according to respondents, for the use of personal iPads for work will open the door for more “bring your own computer to work” programs (for a discussion on these programs check the Citrix blog by clicking here) 

-  The largest perceived benefits include the mobility to work remotely without interruption, greatly improving productivity for even the most remote workers. 

Realizing that the audience being surveyed is more likely to be interested in iPad due to self selection, it is still interesting the high level of support within business for the new device. 

Here are a few additional thoughts from Citrix about iPad’s momentum in the enterprise:

-  Cost is a factor of volume. One of the big surprises of the iPad launch was the price offered by Apple for the device. For the functionality offered (especially as it gets closer to parity), it’s a revolution in IT budgeting to consider this low-cost option for a hardware solution. 

-  The big win for Apple in the enterprise is going to be made on volume. If the company is successful, as it seems it will be, in continuing to have a “low SKU” approach to the market, it will continue to gain advantage through volume alone.

-  “Bring your own computer”:  In a way, this phenomenon is a big change. If Apple makes it acceptable, “Bring your own phone” may be close behind (note:  I have already seen this move amongst a great many of my corporate clients).   This may break the logjam we see now where enterprises hand out corporate phones, yet consumers buy their own and carry them with them in the office (and then negotiate with IT for access to apps, for example). 

-  Mobility as the killer enterprise app. The iPad with 3G has an unlimited data plan option that may be too good to pass up for IT managers who want to deploy mobile solutions or support the mobile workforce. 

-  iTunes for corporate assets. The opportunity to deliver corporate content as subscriptions, podcasts, and video libraries could be a new wrapper on corporate assets. The ability to easily catalog resources is one thing that big intranets and internal corporate networks have been challenged with in the past. Perhaps the structure of a library approach will also target enterprise employees and reduce the friction in content distribution. 

It’s amazing to see the growth of momentum for iPad in business computing. This survey suggests the dynamics of iPad seem to be trending in Apple’s favor.  It’s still a long way off before we see it create a large dent in enterprise laptop or desktop sales, but this movement is creating a new set of opportunities – and problems – in the enterprise. 

But as we discussed at the digital media conference in Mykonos this summer, with its media-friendly design, the iPad is the first mobile device to create an environment perfect for real-time news consumption that maintains the sophistication and style of traditional print magazines and newspapers.  That’s the big sell point.

But how about the whole laptop, tablet, and netbook market?  What is happening?  Based on the reports and surveys in the Financial Times, StrategyEye and Wired  magazine the initial reaction to these tablets was that these new devices represented incremental computing demand.  But now appears that tablets could be truly revolutionary.  The FT recently reported that Asian manufacturers are “quietly starting to blame tablets for weakness” particularly in sales for low-cost laptops. As netbooks did to full-spec portables two years ago, tablet purchases are prompting PC owners to defer replacing old equipment. 

The FT quotes Barclays Capital and Forrester who estimate that next year tablet sales of 31m (including 21m iPads) will surpass netbook shipments of 25m and that tablets will take almost a quarter of the PC market by 2015. 

Ok, these are all computers.  Duh.  But if the trend we mentioned above continues (PCs moving to true personal ownership) and groups such as Motorola, Nokia and Research in Motion plan to produce tablets then what we have is the return of a true growth market and competition against traditional PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell.  Arm-based chips and Google’s Android software might displace Intel and Microsoft.   Tablet growth will come at the expense of netbooks, which have similar grab-and-go media consumption and web browsing as tablets but don’t synchronize data across services like the tablets do.  

So we eagerly await the two mega-digital conferences, the FT Digital Media & Broadcasting Conference 2011 in London (click here) and  Media Summit 2011 in New York (click here), both of which are always a treasure trove of inside information and networking opportunities galore.