HP and Microsoft
Meanwhile, Stephen DeWitt, who is senior VP of HP's Americas Solutions Partners has laid into Apple's relationships with its partners.
He told CRN: "Apple's relationship with partners is transactional, completely. Apple doesn't have an inclusive philosophy of partner capabilities, and that's just absurd."
However while HP knocked Apple, one source told the publication he is sceptical of HP's chances of competing with Apple and Google's tablet software offerings with its webOS that HP acquired from Palm last year, which will run on the firm's TouchPad.
The source reportedly said: "I don't hear much about webOS in the marketplace, and it's going to be tough to build a mobility practice around it. Apple and Android are the two established marketplaces out there. On the tablet side, why wouldn't you just get an iPad?"
And last but not least, while rivals debate the best tablet OS and find fault with Apple's tablet success, Microsoft's global chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, has admitted to The Sydney Morning Herald that he thinks tablets might be a flash in the pan.
Mundie reportedly reckons that smartphones "will become your most personal computer" while laptops will be used for work, in what he dubbed "the portable desk".
He reportedly said: "I think there's an important distinction - and frankly one we didn't jump on at Microsoft fast enough - between mobile and portable. Mobile is something that you want to use while you're moving, and portable is something that you move and then use."
And added: "These are going to bump into one another a little bit and so today you can see tablets and pads and other things that are starting to live in the space in between. Personally I don't know whether that space will be a persistent one or not."
In short, he reportedly said: "I don't know whether the big screen tablet pad category is going to remain with us or not," which might explain why Microsoft is being rather slow to enter the tablet race.
