IDF: Tablets not ready for the enterprise, says Intel

Tablet computers are an important new factor in the computing sphere, but will not have an impact in the corporate world for another two years, according to Intel chief executive Paul Otellini.

"The tablet form factor is evolving and being additive to the computing sphere," he said during his opening keynote at IDF 2010 in San Francisco.

"But it's a content consumption device, and is likely to stay that way because of input/output limitations."

Otellini explained that there is considerable overlap between smartphone use and tablets, pointing out that large amounts of data are ported between the two platforms. In addition, enterprises are showing few indications of support for tablet computing.

However, analysts have disputed this assessment of the platform.

"It's not that the tablet isn't ready for the enterprise," Jon Collins, managing director of analyst house Freeform Dynamics, told V3.co.uk. " It's that the enterprise isn't ready for the tablet."

Collins pointed out that Microsoft had tried to push tablets as part of its Windows Everywhere strategy, for perfectly understandable reasons, at the start of the decade. However, enterprise systems are still lagging.

Plenty of managers use tablets, he said, but lack the infrastructure to support their hardware choices.