Australia first to swallow the tablet
Australia first to swallow the tablet
Australia was the first nation to be shown the new Tablet PC from Microsoft and hardware partners including Fujitsu, Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard. The device, which was first announced in November 2000 has taken its time to arrive, but could change the way data is captured and managed.
"The wall between our paper life and our electronic life has just got a bit lower."
Australia's Sydney launch kicked off a 24 hour session of launches across the world. With the sun rising over Australia first, Dick Brass, the corporate vice president of emerging technologies at Microsoft wanted to be at the first product launch. Mr Brass led the project from birth to its final arrival on the marketplace yesterday.
With a screen that swivels and can be operated with a stylus pen, Tablet PC brings together the technologies of a laptop computer and a PDA. Docking stations and a full Windows XP operating system (OS) potentially mean the Tablet PC converges desktop, laptop and PDA computers into one device.
"I think we have the first commercially viable tablet device," Mr Brass said. In November 1997 Mr Brass, along with a ships carpenter created a wooden model of his vision of the Tablet PC. Unlike PDAs and other handheld data capture devices, Microsoft intended to retain traditional data input methods such as the keyboard and the mouse. "We are not asking you to join a Tablet cult," he said.
With the computing power of a full laptop computer and a handheld pen data input system the Tablet PC could become an important device to records managers, information manager and knowledge workers in a host of industries.
"The Tablet PC is a great example of how computers are adapting to how people really work, whether they're taking notes in a meeting, collaborating wirelessly with colleagues or reading on screen. We're just scratching the surface of what is possible," Bill Gates said in a statement.
Digital Ink, the system developed at Microsoft and partners allows an end user to write on the Tablet PC with the pen, this information can be converted into word processed text or as an annotation on a picture. Mr Brass explained that these notes can be indexed and become searchable documents.
"The wall between our paper life and our electronic life has just got a bit lower," he said.
A number of information management application vendors are already developing Tablet PC versions, including; Adobe, Allscript Healthcare Solutions, BAE, Corel, ESRI GIS applications, Keylogix document management, SAP, ScanSoft document imaging and Siebel.
The November and December issue of Image & Data Manager magazine has a full insight into the Tablet PC's role in information management. To get the latest copy hot off the press subscribe online.
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