Microsoft's Tablet PC - Reinventing Mobile Computing

Launched in November 2002, the worldwide shipments of Tablet PCs were reportedly more than 72,000 units, just three months from the launch date.

This development had taken many industry observers by surprise since it was widely believed that Tablet PCs would not be well received by the market.

Analysts believed that even in the early 21st century, the market was still not ready for mobile computing solutions.

Thus, industry observers pointed out that the sales performance of Tablet PCs was indeed commendable.

While around half of the initial sales were in the US, IDC believed that Asia would emerge as a promising market in the future.


Alan Promisel, a research analyst at IDC commented, "In Asia, the ability to deal with Asian language input more easily than traditional keyboard-equipped notebooks remains a powerful driver."3 Since the Tablet PC could recognize many languages (including English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, Finnish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Italian and Swedish), it was believed to have great potential...