This is definitely something that's on my mind a lot. I'm not a marketing person and it's not something I've been tasked with by a marketing person or the TabletPC team. It's just something that keeps popping up and is very interesting to me.
This weekend while visiting friends outside of Madison, WI after Deeper in .NET, I learned that my friend's partner, a painting contractor who is extremely non-technical, has a TabletPC. He has the Tablet because it came as part of a bundle with a software program (OneStep Estimating) that has become a critical production tool for his business. It is a painting estimator application (a complex excel template) that he can use to produce estimates based on a huge number of factors and calculations. The app has been designed for ease of use on a TabletPC. It comes bundled with a Motion slate. So he can walk around a job site (indoors or outdoors - thanks to the special screen on the Motion) and easily fill out the forms. For the most part, it is a lot of drop down lists so he doesn't even have to fiddle with hand-writing recognition too much.
To Bill, this was the killer app. It is expensive - the full bundle is over $4,000. But because of the value it provides him, he was more than willing to fork over the cash for it.
So here is a killer app that did the trick for this one person. He's not a geek. He doesn't think the tablet is cool. He has never even explored it's other features (of course, I changed that during my visit). He got it purely because of the painting estimator program.
Trying to put that into perspective of "killer app for the mass market" continues to have me scratching my head.
It's a lot easier to justify expenses when they are for your business, for example DSL over dial-up when it adds some $300 or more a year. I don't hesitate for one second. But almost none of my neighbors have it. Those are the same people you have to convince to buy a tablet. One neighbor with a 10 year old is looking for a computer for her. Sure it would be great if she could use the great math practice apps from Jumping Minds. But if their budget is even $500 I would be surprised.
Not that anyone has been arguing with me, but I seem to just not believe in the killer app for the mass market that will make everyone jump to tablets. I think the evolution of computers to a point where the additional mobility features such as ink and speech are not "additional" but just there is how you will get the world using ink.