Tablets will cannibalize netbooks, outselling netbooks starting in 2012.

Here's an interesting line from Sarah Rotman Epps's blog. (she's an analyst at Forrester Research, Inc.)

• Tablets will cannibalize netbooks, outselling netbooks starting in 2012.

Do you agree?

According to their data:

• Over the next five years, PC unit sales across all form factors will increase by 52%.
• US consumers will buy more PCs in 2015 than they do in 2010.
• Growth will come from new form factors like tablets, but laptop sales will increase steadily also.
• In 2015, 23% of all PCs sold to consumers in the US will be tablets.

Sarah serves Consumer Product Strategy professionals with research on consumer PC hardware and software products and services at Forrester Research, Inc.

It should be interesting to follow computer selling trends over the next few years. As people (including physicians) get comfortable with mobile devices, these mobile gadgets will become ubiquitous.  In fact, we will become so dependent on them, that we'll have them everywhere. Right now, people have grown so dependent on their smartphones that if they leave their homes without their smartphone, they feel naked. Will that also happen with larger mobile devices like slate tablets like the Apple iPad?