Aside from seeking to address a bad (and richly deserved) case of “iPad envy,” what’s really going on here? After just traveling with a 15″ notebook PC (an HP dv6) in coach on Delta, I think I can understand the desire for a light and compact machine that makes working on the plane less of a travail, but I’m not sure that a tablet is the answer for those interested in more than reading e-mail, catching up on Facebook, and surfing the Web.

Looking beyond home and consumer situations, where tablets are sure to be a big hit (for many of the same reasons that the iPad continues to rule the touch-based “thin and light” machine realm), the only place I really see touch-based units succeeding is in special-use applications: the signature pad and tracking devices that both UPS and FedEx use; the tracking and reporting handhelds that nearly every service and utility tech seems to carry nowadays; ditto for rental car check-in devices; and so forth. I could see an entirely usable replacement for medical staff who routinely carry a clip-board with tracking, status, and other forms, but I’m not sure there’s enough other stuff like that going on in the corporate world to justify a big influx of tablets for more general applications.

If you think I’m wrong, or have other examples of situations and applications tailor-made for tablet use, please share them here. Otherwise, I’m thinking that conventional desktop and notebook PCs will continue to function as the corporate information consumption and creation tools of choice for the foreseeable future.