“When numerous OEMs were contemplating their tablet offerings at the start of the year, it was against the backdrop of two major variables: how popular would both the iPad and Android be? By the middle of the year it had become clear that the answer to both was: very.”

Really? I know only one person in the IT/Comms company I work for who owns an ipad (he's mac fantic anyway) and none of my friends has one so who is actually buying these?

cheesemp
“When numerous OEMs were contemplating their tablet offerings at the start of the year, it was against the backdrop of two major variables: how popular would both the iPad and Android be? By the middle of the year it had become clear that the answer to both was: very.”

Really? I know only one person in the IT/Comms company I work for who owns an ipad (he's mac fantic anyway) and none of my friends has one so who is actually buying these?

Lots of people, apparently: http://channel.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=25635

These numbers are obviously still small compared to overall PC sales, but are big enough to reassure OEMs of demand for the form-factor.

compared to the number of “Tablet PCs” in the old microsoft vision, huge numbers.

There is at least 300+ iPads in the company that I work, more iPhones than Blackberries…

Its just the way everything goes these days.