Anyone who hasn't been hiding under a rock for the last few weeks won't have been able to avoid the brouhaha concerning the highly anticipated launch of Apple's tablet. Not quite as exciting to some, but certainly more real was Steve Ballmer's keynote at CES last week, where he showed off Windows based tablets from HP, Archos and Pegatron. At the same time there has been an explosion of announcements on Android tablets with manufacturers such as Archos (again), Compal, Dell, HP (again), and Motorola, offering tablets ranging in size from 5 to 10 inches. While in the UK, T-Mobile has announced its own monster 15 inch Vega tablet that will also run Android. If this wasn't enough Intel is pushing Moblin their own Linux-based OS at Netbook manufacturers and have just launched the beta of AppUp Center Intel's take on the single platform application storefront. And let's not forget Walt Mossberg’s interview with Google's VP of Engineering Andy Rubin strongly hinting that Google has RIM in its sights by announcing plans for an enterprise version of the Nexus One smartphone complete with physical keyboard and longer battery life.
A couple of years ago enterprise IT might have seen all this as an interesting diversion and little more. But now with the iPhone, and more importantly the iTunes App Store, expectations on application delivery to the endpoint have changed. Enterprise users now expect to be able to access both personal and business apps where ever they are. So while many of these new devices are clearly aimed at the consumer market, it would be shortsighted not to expect some of them to see service as enterprise application delivery endpoints in the near future.
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