As you know (unless you have lived under a rock over the last week), the iPad was launched on last Saturday. There were stories leading up to the launch which said that consumer interest was not exactly strong. However, with 300,000 units sold in the first four days of the launch, sales appear to be doing just fine. I was lucky enough to get my hands on one, a WiFi-only model, and have reached a conclusion: the iPad is all that and a bag of chips.
 

It is fast, sleek, and easy to use. It is an iPhone on steroids (which should surprise nobody). The processing speed is certainly significantly faster and its connectivity is great. The thing that shocked me was how fast cloud-based/streaming services such as Rhapsody and Netflix worked. I tried both of these services at home using a standard ISP connection, and the content was delivered instantly.

For some time, I have had a feeling that the next generation of tablet PCs would be a game changer, and from what I see on the iPad, my feelings have only been reinforced. If you look long-term, tablet PCs are here to stay. Soon, in my opinion, they will be integrated completely into everyday life. I see one day in the near future where my daughters no longer carry a 50-pound backpack filled with textbooks, but have all they need on one tablet. The tablet PC will soon serve as the central technology hub in their lives, as this product can do all: books, gaming magazines, social media, telepresence (eventually), health, time management, and of course automation and system control.
 

Thus the question becomes, how does an ESC capitalize on tablet PCs? It is clear that the tablet PC will cause some form of disintermediation between the client and the ESC. Touch screen devices that were once very profitable and sold exclusively through closed distribution will be replaced by an open, mass-commoditized product that seems to be able to do wall without any margin.
 

This seems to cement my theory (and that of many others to whom I have spoken) that there is a paradigm shift going on in the market. One in which ESCs are moving away from a product-margin-based operation to a service-labor-based operation. ESCs will come to be looked at as the "Digital Home Doctor" (a phrase I like to think I have coined) - the sole provider for all of the client's digital needs, including designing, implementing, diagnosing, and treating robust residential home networks. The new tablets, and the concept of cloud computing, will place more emphasis on content portability and ease of access. All of this will require a skilled hand to manage long-term home network and equipment needs.
 

My conclusion is thus; the iPad is an excellent consumer device which will definitely present a short-term threat to traditional integration companies. However, for the creative, tablet PCs offer long-term potential.