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Through the end of December, Hewlett-Packard was virtually tied with Acer in worldwide shipments of Tablet PCs, according to research released Monday by IDC. Around 72,000 units had been sold through December, IDC said.

Both HP and Acer shipped about 17,000 units of the Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 and TravelMate 100, respectively, said Alan Promisel, an analyst with IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts. Fujitsu was third with shipments of about 15,000 Stylistic ST4000 Tablets, and Toshiba America Information Systems' Portege 3500 came in fourth with about 10,500 units, Promisel said.

Tablet PC vendors launched their devices on November 7, in conjunction with Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet PC Edition launch the same day.

"For only six weeks, 70,000 units is pretty significant. We're still at the very early stages of the early adopters," Promisel said.

Early Adopters

Those early adopters have come mainly from users with specific needs for mobility, such as health-care workers, traveling salespeople, and warehouse managers, he said. Corporations are still evaluating the devices, and probably won't start adopting them in significant numbers for another 6 to 12 months, he said.

HP's strong marketing efforts and existing enterprise customer base helped it to the early lead, Promisel said. But Fujitsu's strength in delivering tablet-like products, such as its pen-based Lifebook series, for a number of years showed in its strong early performance, he said.

The Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 is a convertible notebook device, while Fujitsu's product is a slate device. Back in November, analysts predicted that the convertible devices would be a better draw initially because of their resemblance to ultraportable notebooks.

The keyboard on HP's device is detachable, allowing it to function as both a convertible notebook and slate device. Toshiba's product is a true convertible notebook, with a notebook display that swivels to cover the keyboard when used in tablet mode.

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