IDC's crystal ball says Apple tablet, 300,000 App Store apps in 2010
One fun thing about being a tech research firm is that sometimes you can state the obvious and everybody still gets excited. That's what will happen today when technology research company IDC releases their forecast for the next year, and in anticipation of the big news, the New York Times recently had a chat with Frank Gens, IDC's chief analyst.
Among the predictions the company will announce today is the expectation of an Apple-branded touchscreen tablet computer. Wow, we've never heard that before! Gens thinks that it will be a general-purpose device instead of just an ebook reader, and "could deliver a real kick in Kindle's butt."
IDC is also assuming that the recent trend of cranky developers dropping iPhone development won't continue; they're stating that the number of apps in the App Store will climb to 300,000 by the end of 2010 and that the competing Android platform will see up to 75,000 apps by that time.
Gens pointed out that there are about 10,000 apps listed on Microsoft's Windows 7 compatibility site, and notes that "The market follows the applications. That's a message for the software industry, particularly for the PC industry."
I'm interpreting this comment as meaning that the most compelling and innovative software is not being developed for the big operating system on the block -- instead, the mobile space is the recipient of most of the attention right now, and that could end up being a huge factor in the success of an Apple tablet.
[via Mac Rumors]
