SAN FRANCISCO – Fresh off the unveiling of Apple’s iPad tablet PC, we have a whole new batch of tablet rumors–this time regarding a Google Chrome-based tablet device. The Chromium Project, the core behind the development of the Chrome operating system. Has released a number of mockups and early concepts regarding what a Chrome-based tablet PC might be.
isn’t Apple, but next to Apple, Google is arguably the most-qualified to launch a tablet device capable of being a game changer. One thing that Apple and Google have in common is that they tend to think outside of the mainstream and are capable of creating paradigm-shifting innovation.
After all of the hype, rumors, and speculation, the Apple iPad is really more of a giant iPod Touch than a full computer. While some tablets, like the HP Slate unveiled by Steve Ballmer at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), operate on Windows 7 or some other desktop operating system, the iPad runs the iPhone mobile operating system rather than Apple’s Mac OS X.

An “iPhone on steroids”, as many have dubbed it, may not seem very compelling, but the reality is that the iPad looks to be a very capable device for what its designed to do. The fact that it runs the vast library of apps available in the iTunes App Store gives users tens of thousands of free and cheap programs to choose from, and developers will soon create new apps uniquely suited for the iPad form factor.

Based on the early conceptual ideas regarding the Chrome tablet, Google may be taking a completely different, yet equally innovative, approach to the tablet PC. Whereas the Apple iPad revolves around apps–similar to the popular iPhone and iPod Touch devices, the Chrome tablet takes a Web-based doc, or file-centric approach.

The very concept of the Chrome OS revolves around creating a Web-centric operating system that sheds all of the excess weight and frivolous features of standard desktop operating system, and provides a streamlined Web browser interface that enables users to interact with Web-based services like Google Docs, Gmail, Picassa, etc.

The tablet PC page on the Chromium site has a variety of mock photos depicting what a Chrome-based tablet might look like. It also lists some of the design elements currently under consideration:

•Keyboard interaction with the screen: anchored, split, attached to focus.

•Launchers as an overlay, providing touch or search as means to access web sites.

•Contextual actions triggered via dwell.

•Zooming UI for multiple tabs

•Tabs presented along the side of the screen

•Creating multiple browsers on screen using a launcher

Aesthetics and user interface aside, a Chrome OS tablet may make a better business tool than the Apple iPad for a few reasons. First, many businesses have existing Web-based tools and applications. A tablet that works seamlessly with the Web would be a more natural extension of existing business tools than a tablet PC centered around iPhone apps.

The nature of Google Docs, Gmail, Google Wave, and other tools from Google allow for seamless synchronization between the tablet, the desktop, the mobile phone, and any other platform because the tools and the data reside online.

The fact that the applications and data are Web-based also makes it easier to share data with other users and collaborate–in real-time, or not–with peers, partners, or customers.

Finally, the Chrome operating system is open-source which enables businesses to freely customize it to fit their needs, or develop tools for it that integrate with other systems and improve business processes. Further, they can deploy those tools without having to get approval from Google, and without having to make them available to the general public in the app store.

Don’t get me wrong, the iPad actually has way more business potential than many give it credit for. Once it arrives, I have faith that new tools will continue to be developed to enhance its business functionality even farther. And, let’s face it, the iPad has been officially announced and will be available soon while the Chrome tablet is pure speculation, so the iPad wins in that department as well.

Whether or not the Chrome tablet ends up being a better business tool than the iPad will remain to be seen, if and when a Chrome-based tablet actually exists.

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple has made a bone-head play that damages the iPad’s potential for business. But, Microsoft, believe it or not, could come to the rescue. Here’s why:

Apple put iWork–not a great tool to begin with–on the iPad. It’s better than nothing, but while iWork can read Microsoft Office formats, it can’t be set to save DOC files by default. What a mistake. While Apple’s home and student customers may be fine with this annoying limitation, business users can’t be endlessly exporting documents to share with colleagues and customers. Unless Apple makes this important change to iWork on the iPad, the forthcoming tablet will be a good device to view written content, but will fall flat when it comes to creating it.

But suppose Microsoft (hold the boos, please) decided there was money to be made here, and created a version of Office for the tablet? Given the relative lack of storage and so on, iPad Office couldn’t be full-featured, but since most of us only use a fraction of Office’s capabilities, that wouldn’t be a show stopper. In fact, we’d have a device that would be useful for small business, and would probably cut deeply into sales of netbooks.

Apple has some additional work to do as well. If the iPad is to become the super-light computing device of choice, it has to support a full-featured browser, and that means supporting Flash. Whether Apple likes it or not, Flash is ubiquitous, and going to a Web site and getting that annoying error message and chunk of blank screen is a bummer.

Google Docs and ZOHO: Online But Not Offline

Am I serious about Microsoft stepping in? Yes, it would be a great idea, and it would make money for Microsoft. But I’d be surprised if Ballmer & Co. had the imagination to make that move. So, I don’t expect it to happen, at least not immediately.

But there are alternatives, albeit limited, you can likely use as soon as the iPad hits the stores.

Google Docs would probably run fairly well on the iPad, but there are two caveats. The first has to do with screen real estate, the second with Google Gears.

When the iPad is in the editing or writing mode, a virtual keyboard pops up, making it hard to see the tools you need to write and edit a document. You might be able to work around this issue, but it would certainly slow you down.

More serious, I think, is the lack of support for Google Gears, which is necessary to run Google docs offline. Without that capability, there’s no way to work on documents on an airplane, for example, which is a mighty big downside. When Google and the somewhat similar ZOHO are used offline, they can later be synched with the cloud versions, ensuring that you have the current versions of your documents. (Thanks to Harry McCracken of Technologizer for mentioning these points to me.)

ZOHO also needs Google gears to work offline. However, since the Safari browser already supports parts of the developing HTML 5 standard, it shouldn’t be too long until ZOHO, and likely Google, will work offline on the iPad, says Raju Vegesna, ZOHO’s chief evangelist.
HTML 5 is expected to reduce or even eliminate the need for the many of the plugins needed today by browsers. Indeed, HTML 5, which is strongly backed by Apple, should ultimately make the Flash-support issue disappear, Vegesna says. But how long that will take is unclear.

QuickOffice and Roambi Could Help

Then there’s QuickOffice, a nifty little app that runs on the iPhone and a number of its competitors. It gives basic editing capabilities to use with Word and Excel documents, and allows you to view (but not edit) PowerPoints.

Clearly, that’s not the way you want to work all the time, but I find QuickOffice helpful even when used on the small iPhone screen. It should be quite a bit better after the company tweaks its app to take advantage of the comparatively huge iPad. That should happen by the time the tablet reaches consumers, the company told me on Monday.

Roambi produces colorful charts and graphs from your spreadsheets and business intelligence reports, making complex data readable on the small iPhone screen, so it should work on the iPad. The processing occurs on Roambi’s secure server. Like QuickOffice, it is available from the iTunes app store.