Tablets Are Coming But Is Business Prepared?

Jan. 17, 2011 - PRLog -- A quarter of tablets, such as the Apple iPad, will be bought by business in the coming 12 months, according to a prediction by Deloitte, global finance consultants, reflecting the shift away from search engines and deskbound PC to the handheld devices using mobile app and tablet search and purchasing.

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas, a staggering 75 new tablets were unveiled, including the BlackBerry Playbook and Motorola Xoom (aka ‘The Honeycomb’), showing very clearly why 2011  is already being called the ‘year of the tablet’. According to Deloitte, companies in the retail, healthcare and manufacturing sectors, attracted by the ease of use and longer battery life, will purchase more than 10 million tablets for their workforce.
Currently, combined global sales of smartphones, netbooks and tablets look set to overtake annual PC sales of 400 million for the first time in 2011, with both Apple and Google threatening to replace Microsoft’s dominance through its’ monopoly on desktop operating software systems by the rolling out of  mobile, handheld smart devices.

Previously, it was assumed that tablets would be instantly taken up by general consumers but it now seems that it will be the corporate and business sectors who will be leading the revolution, while the relatively less sophisticated netbook will be also be continuing to eat away at desktop PC usage.

As a consequence of the development and rapid take up of the new platforms of mobile and tablet, b2b search behaviours will shift, forcing marketing strategies to evolve more emphatically than has been previously seen. Bypassing the traditional search engine method by simply downloading a specific app or responding to info and advice received by social media channels to directly link to a specific site destination changes the online marketing terrain for  business website owners.

There is every indication that the present reliance by many websites on paid search PPC ad and optimised SEO keyword link building  to drive visitor traffic and Google ranking will be less important than the ability to be found, preferred and socially engaged with niche community markets. Delivering constant two way interactivity via app, download, tweet, update and feedback has already begun.

Relevance, convenience and speed according to content and context seem to have been driving the 2010 Google additions such as Google Places, Instant and Preview. Brand visibility, trust and transaction are now as much a function of human engagement  and word of mouth marketing as existing paid or organic search.

With the advent of iPad 2 due in Spring 2011 likely to give further impetus to the tablet takeover, the big issues confronting business  owners and how their website accessibility and credibility of presence remains appropriately optimised across the increasingly populated platforms and channels, are surely to reach a decisive point in the coming 12 months with so many companies yet to really awake to the new online reality.

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