There’s been a wave of murmurs about who’s doing what. The world’s No 1 PC maker, Hewlett-Packard, is working on a tablet called Slate, which it plans to launch by June or July. Also in the works this summer is a tablet called Streak from Dell. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless is partnering Google to build an Android based tablet computer.

 

In Taiwan, Acer, currently the world’s second-largest PC brand, is said to be working with Quanta Computer, the largest contract maker of notebooks globally, to create a tablet PC running on Google’s Chrome operating system. However, that development is still in the pipeline and the company has clarified that it won’t be showcasing any such device at Computex.

That puts two smaller Taiwanese companies in the lead to showcase iPad-like challengers. One is Asustek, the notebook maker that popularised netbooks and has grown to become the fifth-largest PC maker worldwide. It is set to unveil its Eee Pad at Computex, rumoured to be equipped with 3G, USB ports, an integrated webcam and even support for Adobe’s Flash.

 

The other company is Micro-Star International (MSI), a Taiwanese maker of motherboards and notebooks. It is poised to debut its MSI Slatebook which will come with WiFi or 3G, a 10in touchscreen and run on Windows 7. Both companies plan to start shipping these new tablets in 3Q.

 

I hesitate to call these iPad “killers”, because the way things are going in the tablet space, this is really a race for second place. Apple has sold more than a million iPads to date, and if it continues at this rate, will surpass the number of Kindle e-readers that Amazon sells in a year. According to RBC Capital Markets, Apple is now selling at least 200,000 iPads a week, greater than the number of Macs sold weekly and just below weekly iPhone 3GS sales in 1Q in the US. The investment bank forecasts that Apple will sell eight million iPads worldwide this year. That’s a lot more than what most analysts were predicting earlier this year.

 

However, beyond all the buzz about who’s going to be No 2, the other big disruption right now is just how the iPad is recasting the e-reader and netbook markets. Once the fastest-growing category, low-cost, low-power netbooks are seeing growth taper off. Now, they’ve got to contend with the iPad’s colour touchscreen and lighter weight, and Apple’s legendary userfriendly interface. It is even worse for e-readers, a segment that is still finding its feet. Against the iPad’s multimedia capabilities, e-readers seem like onetrick ponies.

 

However, a comparison done by the Topology Research Institute in Taipei shows that mainstream greyscale e-readers such as the Kindle are better for reading over long spells than the iPad, which can be a strain on the eyes after a while. The big downside with e-readers is that their average selling price of US$500 ($709) is steep, versus the basic iPad, currently tagged at US$499.

 

If e-readers want to stand out against tablet PCs, the institute advocates that they slash their price to below US$200. That would help them appeal to consumers outside of serious readers and the education market. Alternatively, e-readers would have to upgrade themselves and offer multimedia browsing, Internet surfing and word-processing functions.

 

That would mean blurring the line between tablet PC and e-reader. And, that seems to be exactly what companies like Amazon and Samsung are doing. Amazon is said to be ramping up its team to build the next-generation Kindle, with enhanced capabilities to play third-party applications like games. Samsung is re-tooling its latest e-reader and toying with adding a colour screen and 3G capability. Meanwhile, e-paper suppliers, many of which are Taiwanese companies such as Prime View International, AU Optronics, and Delta Electronics, are speeding up the development of colour technologies.

 

In comparison, netbook makers aren’t revisiting their drawing boards as anxiously. That’s because they reckon there is still a significant market out there for people who want lightweight mobile devices with the full range of computing capabilities, instead of tablets, which are essentially entertainment gadgets.

 

According to data from research firms Gartner and In-Stat, of the 700 million PCs projected to be sold in 2014, an estimated 50 million to 60 million would be tablets. That’s 7.1% to 8.6% of the overall PC market. The overwhelming bulk of computing devices expected to be sold in the future should still be notebooks (with netbooks a minority slice of that segment) and desktops.

 

As for e-readers, In-Stat expects to see a total of 28 million units shipped in 2013, from just one million units in 2008. Despite its lofty take-up rate at the moment, Apple’s iPad is unlikely to displace more conventional computing devices — even if it has got them all hot and bothered trying to come up with a compelling substitute.