Mobile Trends: Is the tablet's time here?

It was approximately one year ago when the first tablet PCs hit the market. Amid great fanfare, Microsoft boasted that, with its new operating system, the hybrid breed of portable computers, which allow users to write on the screen with a stylus, would soon supplant all other enterprise PCs. With the new technological advances offered by the latest generation of tablet PCs and heavy competition among vendors, industry observers say that now could be the time to invest in tablet PCs. Michael Gartenberg, a research director with Jupiter Research in New York, said that, of IT executives surveyed last year by his firm, 21% were testing tablet PCs. Since then, interest has only increased, he said. "Last year was a good time to begin the pilot process, and [companies] can still go ahead and do that this year. Now, I think we'll see a lot of those pilot projects turn into mainstream usage," Gartenberg said. Gartenberg said vendors such as Toshiba Corp. and Acer Inc. are refreshing their product lines, and they'll be making a number of new models available between now and the end of the year. Hewlett-Packard Co. is also launching a new line of tablets. Mark Baerenstecher, HP's worldwide product manager for tablet PCs, said the company's TC1100 line, announced last week, offers improved performance and extended battery life over previous models. He added that because the company's models rely on a variety of Intel processors, as well