Digital Directions: Tablet Pioneer Picks Wrong Horse to Ride

It is ironic. As we enter 2012, a year that is by all accounts setting up to be "The Year of the Tablet!" we are likely to see the dimming of the preeminence of the iPad, the device that created the category in the first place.

We tend to forget that many jaded pundits scoffed at the launch of the iPad: "How can an iPhone that does not make calls, and is too big to fit in one's pocket, be interesting to any customer, particularly if said customer already has an iPhone and a laptop—and when the price of the iPad is precariously close to the price of a laptop?"