5. Creative Support

Master builder: tablet PC functions allow an architect to insert his comments and suggested changes directly into digital building plans on-site with Autodesk Architectural Studio.

Autodesk is one of the first companies that was able to present a software product for the tablet PC. Autodesk Architectural Studio uses stylus input in order to allow architects and building contractors to draw freehand as if they were drawing on paper. The software then transfers the drawing to properly scaled 3D graphics with correct perspective that can then be revised further in Autocad, for example.

Steve Apking of SOM, an architecture firm in New York, used the software on a Wacom tablet even before tablet PCs became available. "Thanks to the tablet PC, I can now change drawings and add digital photos and notes when I'm traveling, particularly at construction sites," he says. The big advantage in working with the tablet PC: drawings no longer need to be digitized. Where sketches used to have to be scanned at great expense, now the data is there digitally from the very start.

Skeptical Predictions

Despite Microsoft's broad experience in pen computers, tablet PC skeptic Fereydun Khanide believes that with the current state of the art, it is too early to say that tablet PCs will replace all mobile computers. "In our experience, there is no real competition between the notebook and the pen book/ tablet PC." Even if the first tablet PCs - such the Travelmate C102T from Acer - are now available in larger retail stores, for the moment, they will hardly gain wide acceptance. The place for tablets will continue to be in the professional world, with customer-specific projects.

Skepticism seems justified in view of the sample scenarios cited above: except for the person who gives many presentations, none of the users described absolutely needs a tablet PC. Theoretically, all scenarios will also work with pen computers without digitizers and handwriting recognition. If Microsoft and its hardware partners want the tablet PC to succeed as hoped, new applications need to be developed that get the most out of the tablet PC.