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Fourteen percent, or 27 million U.S. online consumers, intend to buy some kind of tablet in the next 12 months, says a Forrester research report (.pdf) published Thursday (chart below). Customers interested in purchasing a tablet aren’t primarily Apple customers, and they’re well aware of the crop of upcoming tablets from competitors such as Google and Hewlett-Packard.
Additionally, a similar study by the Magazine Publishers of America found that nearly 60 percent of U.S. consumers expect to purchase an e-reader or tablet within the next three years.
HP to launch webOS tablet computer in 2011
HP has confirmed it will release a tablet computer running the webOS platform early next year
Now that Hewlett-Packard has announced plans to release a webOS tablet early next year, its next big goal–in addition to building the device–is to persuade software developers to write apps for the mobile gadget. Given the early popularity of Apple’s iPad, as well as the imminent arrival of numerous tablets running Google’s Android OS, that task could prove challenging.
HP hopes that by offering a variety of tablet computers to suit different needs, it will be in a good position to challenge the dominance of Apple’s iPad.
The computer company has also said that it will use webOS to power a range of smartphones, netbooks, and internet-enabled printers.
