Net tablets to challenge nascent e-reader market
Monday, 25 January 2010, 15:05 IST
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Net tablets to challenge nascent e-reader market
New Delhi: Challenging the business of e-reader companies in future years, Net tablets (notebook PCs in the shape of a tablet) may emerge as a strong category in 2010, according to the consulting major Deloitte and Touche. Announcing, its 2010 predictions for the technology sector, Deloitte and Touche forecasts that 2010 will be the breakout year for net tablets, reports Economic Times. "The rise of the net tablet could constrain the growth of the nascent e-reader market. For every million net tablets sold there will be a corresponding impact on e-readers. The year 2010 will be a breakout year for net tablets," Rajarshi Sengupta, Senior Director, at Deloitte and Touche Consulting told the Economic Times. The net tablets are notebooks which are designed in a tablet form, much like the size of an Amazon's kindle or Sony's e-reader. Most are optimized for only surfing the web, like netbooks and may use a wireless keypad or a touchscreen one. It also predicted the rise of cloud computing, thin clients and green technologies in years to come. In India, the nettabs might take some time to evolve, but it sees a rise in cloud computing market, which may augur a decline for companies in the USB drive and DVD business. The likes of Apple and Microsoft are teaming up with Hewlett-Packard. They are anticipated to launch their products early this year, following news out of the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2010. Custom-designed tablets about $400-$500 are also likely to be released by start-ups costing, some existing phone and PC makers, netbook leaders, and various smaller manufacturers using open-source phone operating systems. Deloitte also forecasts that virtual desk infrastructure, based on thin or stateless clients, will be taken far more seriously in 2010. "An anticipated one million seats are expected to go thin client in 2010, with the largest deployments involving tens of thousands of seats. By 2015, thin client may reach 10 percent of all enterprise client devices," Deloitte and Touche said. Also, in the backdrop of a recession and slow recovery, employers may consider it as a good opportunity considering that thin clients, which are much cheaper than thick clients. The CleanTech sector's performance is anticipated to be mixed, according to Deloitte. Although solar demand is likely to grow strongly in 2010 and 2011, some subsidy cuts and cheaper-than-expected electricity rates may prevent that growth from being as strong as some might hope. "2010 will also see the world's first laboratory scale carbon-negative cement plant delivering significant reductions in global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. To produce a tonnne of cement about 900 kilos of CO2 are emitted. Thus by 2020 we might see a large number of corporations using green cement," Sengupta added.

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