Tablet market set to become more competitive

Apple's iPad remains the top seller among tablets despite competition from challengers in 2011, including Amazon's Kindle Fire and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. In the coming year, Microsoft reportedly will throw its hat into the ring against Apple when the company releases Windows 8 on tablets, in addition to offering the new operating system on traditional PCs.

Windows 8 on tablets could possibly force Apple into a more challenging fight with its competitors in the market for tablets being used for work purposes, eWeek recently reported.

EWeek cited research firm IHS iSuppli, which said Apple entered 2012 holding an estimated 65.6 percent of the global tablet market. Apple alleged that 93 percent of Fortune 500 companies are testing or issuing the iPad to employees.

Apple's competition, including Research in Motion's Playbook, has thus far suffered from low sales numbers, the source noted. RIM reported it only shipped about 150,000 Playbook tablets during the final quarter of 2011.

The iPad allows employees to use their personal devices for business purposes also, which caused problems for IT administrators who were worried about mobile device management. Despite this, sales of the Apple product have benefited from more employers encouraging workers to bring their own devices to work, eWeek noted.

“A lot of IT administrators wanted to keep the iPad out of the enterprise, and then they were sort of forced to follow along,” Kurt Roemer, chief security strategist for Citrix Systems, told eWEEK. “They needed to find a way to have an acceptable level of security on a consumer-grade device.”

Many companies managed to solve security issues by contracting a third party security company to provide mobile device security. The third party security companies look to cash in on Apple's success by offering tailored security packages for the iPad; however, as eWeek reported, industry insiders know that the potential for tablets goes beyond any single device.

“Tablets are the new way of interacting with anything,” said Peter Coffee, vice president and head of platform research at Salesforce. “Tablets are not just replacements for PCs. They’re a new master key that we’re going to use to unlock data and access function in pretty much every environment you can imagine.”

With Microsoft looking to provide more competition by releasing Windows 8 in 2012, Apple is likely to continue updating its software to remain a step ahead of the competition. And it's likely mobile device makers will have to design products that can function as devices for both work and personal use, making tablets easy to use but safe, given evolving users behaviors. For example, people are increasingly using their mobile devices to make online purchases. According to IBM's Benchmark December holiday report, sales from mobile devices doubled, reaching 11 percent as opposed to the 5.5 percent that was reported in December 2010.