After iPad, Kindle Fire most desired tablet, study finds

After iPad, Kindle Fire most desired tablet, study finds | The Digital Home - CNET News CNET News 2011 

 

CNET News The Digital Home After iPad, Kindle Fire most desired tablet, study finds

 

by Don Reisinger November 21, 2011 5:38 AM PST

 

The Kindle Fire is heavily favored among consumers.

(Credit:Amazon)

Amazon's Kindle Fire has been available for less than a week, but already, it's a highly desiredtablet, a new study has found.

Among future tablet buyers, 65 percent of respondents said that they are planning to purchaseApple's iPad, a ChangeWave Research study found. In no time at all, Amazon's Kindle Fire has been able to attract 22 percent of future tablet buyers. The Samsung Galaxy Tab line, which has been available for over a year, was only able to muster 4 percent demand among consumers looking to buy a tablet in the coming months. According to ChangeWave, no other tablet vendor was able to secure just 1 percent demand among consumers.

That said, the pool of consumers who want to buy a tablet in the next 90 days isn't necessarily big. This month, 14 percent of consumers said that they plan to buy a tablet in the next three months, according to ChangeWave. But that is a marked improvement over the 6 percent demand tallied in August.

According to ChangeWave, the Kindle Fire isn't necessarily going to impact the iPad, which will continue to dominate the tablet space if these numbers hold up, but it is a major threat to all other tablet vendors that are trying to establish their products in the space.

What tablets do consumers want to buy over the next 90 days?

(Credit:ChangeWave Research)

"The launch of the Amazon Kindle Fire represents a shot across the bow at Apple, who until now has almost completely dominated the tablet space," ChangeWave said today in a statement. "But the most immediate impact of the Amazon device is on the rest of the competition, where the survey shows it wreaking a devastating blow to a range of second-tier tablet manufacturers, including Motorola, RIM, Dell, HTC, HP and Toshiba."

But does Apple really have nothing to worry about? ChangeWave's latest findings follow earlier research from the company that found that 26 percent of those who preordered the Kindle Fire or said that they would buy it soon after launch were planning to delay an iPad purchase. Furthermore, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky said earlier this month that over 25 percent of those who plan to buy the Kindle Fire are saying that they'd rather have Amazon's tablet rather than the iPad.

Related LinksKindle Fire cutting into consumer appetite for iPad--SurveyAndroid coming on store in tablets, Q3 data showsCNET answers your Kindle Fire questions

So, perhaps the Kindle Fire will, in fact, impact the iPad. But impacting and beating the iPad are two very different things.

According to research from Strategy Analytics from last month, Apple secured 66.6 percent of the worldwide tablet market in the third quarter, easily outpacing all other vendors. The company is also expected to launch 12 million to 13 million iPad units this quarter, tripling the 4 million Kindle Fire tablets that will be shipping during the period, according to Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar.

ChangeWave's latest findings are based on 3,043 Norther American consumer responses.

Don Reisinger Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, posting at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

Topics: Digital Home Tags: Apple, Kindle Fire, Amazon, iPad

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Study: iOS, iPad gain enterprise computing share

iOS devices were the most popular new devices activated using Good Technology's enterprise software, according to a study the company released today.

(Credit: Good Technology)

Apple has said many times that the iPhone and iPad are gaining popularity with enterprise-level businesses. We've heard most recently that the iPad is either being used or tested for use at "more than 80 percent" of Fortune 100 companies, according to Apple COO Tim Cook. Today, a company that makes enterprise software is providing additional evidence that corporate customers are warming to the iPad, with details on which industries are embracing it already.

Good Technology makes enterprise software for mobile devices (Good For Enterprise), and over the last year has been tracking which devices its clients put its software on. Using data gleaned from more than 2,000 clients, Good found that during the fourth quarter of 2010, more than 65 percent of all activations using its software were on iOS devices--which means iPhones and iPads. iPad activations grew from 14 percent of all new devices to 22 percent of all new devices during that same time period.

The most activated devices Good saw during the quarter were, in order, iPhone 4, iPad, iPhone 3GS, Motorola Droid X, and Motorola Droid 2. Overall, Android phones remained about a third of new devices activated during the quarter, roughly the same as the previous three months, according to the study. For the first time, there were no Windows Mobile or Symbian devices in the top 10 most activated new devices, Good found.

It should be noted that Windows Phone 7 is not included since Good doesn't support that platform yet, and all BlackBerry software is run off the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, so Good does not have access to data regarding activations of RIM's smart phone devices.

We also get some detail on where the iPad is being used. Good found that the industry its customers are most using the iPad in are financial services, followed by health care, legal/professional services, high tech, government/public sector, and wholesale/retail.

Apple obviously has a head start in tablets since the iPad has been available since April 2010, but in the coming year it should have some competition. There are several Android tablets expected to be released this year, as well as WebOS tablets from Hewlett-Packard, which is a heavyweight when it comes to enterprise customers. But the biggest challenge for tablet adoption in enterprise is likely to come from RIM, which, as previously mentioned, won't be included in Good's numbers. The PlayBook is expected to go on sale this year as a companion device to the BlackBerry, which has been long-entrenched in the corporate world.

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