Tablet takeoff

Four out of five firms will be using tablet PCs by 2013, according to Gartner

The use of tablet PC and smartphone devices in the workplace will skyrocket over the next three years, Gartner has predicted.

The market watcher recently published its annual list of technologies and trends it believes will take the IT industry by storm.

According to this year’s forecast, the growing popularity of tablet PCs means by 2013, 80 per cent of firms will be using them.

he analyst house also predicts that, by 2014, some 90 per cent of businesses will be providing IT support for applications run on personal devices, including smartphones and notebooks

To accommodate this shift, businesses will need to re-evaluate their IT support strategies, Gartner warned.

“At a minimum, in cases where employees are bringing in their own devices for convenience, enterprises will have to offer appliance-level and helpdesk support for connectivity issues,” it said.

James Coulson, European marketing manager at Viewsonic, said the price point of tablets and the technology behind them had made the form factor viable.

“The only thing that is holding back mainstream adoption is interaction and content,” he added. “Getting a new generation to perform and effectively interact with colleagues without a keyboard and mouse will be the ultimate test for content providers and application developers.”