Tablets have it harder than PCs

As a new technology, tablets have a much harder job than PCs had.

When individuals and companies started using personal computers, there was either no established IT infrastructure, or the established infrastructure was separate from the realm in which PCs operated. For an individual, that realm was the home, and the PC was the first computing device. (It may have been something other than an IBM PC; perhaps a Commodore C-64 or a Radio Shack TRS-80. But it was the only computer in the house.)

Companies may have had mainframe computers, or timesharing services, or even minicomputers. Some may have had no computers. For companies with no computers, the PC was the first computer. For companies with larger, "real" computers, the PC occupied a different computing area.

Mainframes and minicomputers were used for financial applications. PCs were used, initially, as replacements for typewriters and word processing systems. Over time we expanded the role of the PC into a computing workstation, but they were still isolated from each other and processing data that was not on the mainframe.

PCs and their applications could grow without interference from the high priests of the mainframe. The mainframe programmers and system analysts were busy with "real" business applications and not concerned with fancy electric typewriters. (And as long as PCs were fancy electric typewriters, the mainframe programmers and analysts were right to ignore them.)

PC applications grew, in size and number. Eventually they started doing "real" work. And shortly after we used PCs to do real business work, we wanted to share data with other PCs and other systems -- such as those that ran on mainframes.

That desire lead to a large change in technology. We moved away from the mainframe model of central processing with simple terminals. We looked for ways to bridge the "islands of automation" that PCs made. We built networking for PCs, scavenging technologies and creating a few. We connected PCs to other PCs. We connected PCs to minicomputers. We connected PCs to mainframes.

Our connections were not limited to hardware and low-level file transfers. We wanted to connect a PC application to a mainframe application. We wanted to exchange information, despite PCs using ASCII and mainframes using EBCDIC.

After decades of research, experiment, and work, we arrived at our current model of connected computing. Today we use mostly PCs and servers, with mainframes performing key functions. We have the hardware and networks. We have character sets (UNICODE, usually) and protocols to exchange data reliably.

It is at this point that tablets arrive on the scene.

Where PCs had a wide open field with little oversight, tablets come to the table with a well-define infrastructure, technically and bureaucratically. The tablet does not replace a stand-alone device like a typewriter; it replaces (or complements) a connected PC. The tablet does not have new applications of its own; it performs the same functions as PCs.

In some ways, the existing infrastructure makes it easy for tablets to fit in. Our networking is reliable, flexible, and fast. Tablets can "plug in" to the network quickly and easily.

But tablets have a harder job than PCs. The "bureaucracy" ignored PCs when they arrived; it is not ignoring tablets. The established IT support groups define rules for tablets to follow, standards for them to meet. Even the purchasing groups are aware of tablets; one cannot sneak a tablet into an organization below the radar.

Another challenge is the connectedness of applications. Our systems talk to each other, sending and receiving data as they need it. Sometimes this is through plain files, somethings through e-mail, and sometimes directly. To be useful, tablets must send and receive data to those systems. They cannot be a stand-alone device. (To be fair, a stand-alone PC with no network connection would be a poor fit in today's organizations too.)

But the biggest challenge is probably our mindset. We think of tablets as small, thin, mouseless PCs, and that is a mistake. Tablets are small, they are thin, and they are mouseless. But they are not PCs.

PCs are much better for the composition of data, especially text. Tablets are better for the collection of certain types of data (photographs, location) and the presentation of data. These are two different spheres of automation.

We need new ideas for tablets, new approaches to computation and new expectations of systems. We need to experiment with tablets, to let these new ideas emerge and prove themselves. I fully expect that most new ideas will fail. A few will succeed.

Forcing tablets into the system designed for PCs will slow the experiments. Tablets must "be themselves". The challenge is to change our bureaucracy and let that happen.