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Adobe CEO: Tablets will be more than consumption devices

Adobe is positioning for the day when tablets become more than consumption devices.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, is betting that tablets will become more than consumption devices as they get more powerful processors.

Speaking at the Citi Technology Conference, Narayen said tablets will become more full powered computing devices that can be used to create content.

When we think of content offering as tablet applications, it's clear that tablet applications today are a consumption device, but these tablet applications continue to gain in power, and it's no question that they will be used not just for consumption, but also for authoring. And Adobe is going to embrace that as an authoring paradigm as well.

Narayen said that Adobe launched its Carousel imaging application that allows users to edit and manage photos. Carousel is basically Lightroom for the tablet.

I think you will see us be very aggressive about offering tablet applications, whether that's for Web creation, whether that's for graphics, whether that's for artwork, whether that's for video, on all of these tablet applications to our professional customers, as well as, it's actually a great customer acquisition for us, because the education segment tends to be an area which is of great strength for us, and they are also embracing these tablet applications.

Of course, the largest issue with Narayen's projection revolves around when tablets will become full-blown authoring tools. With quad-core chips on the way, there's no doubt tablets will become more powerful and steal more PC sales.

Gartner said Thursday that PC shipments for 2011 would be up 3.8 percent from 2010. Sales are supposed to pick up for 2012. Gartner cited a weak economy, excess inventory and new form factors like tablets for the anemic 2011 growth.

"More worrisome for the long term is that Generation Y has an altogether different view of client devices than older generations and are not buying PCs as their first, or necessarily main, device," said Ranjit Atwal, a Gartner research director.

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