A while back we did a paper looking at the CPU marketplace and how new chips help to foster new software sales. Part of our work focused on the number of players that were looking to play in the netbook / mobile device marketplace (Braden Cox blogged about it here).
I was happy with our multi-page paper and our general prognosticating/pontificating, but a snippet from this Gizmodo chart from sums it up rather succinctly:
Every chip manufacturer is playing in the iPad/Slate/tablet game. With the hardware market worth more than 10 billion and the Apps market predicted to exceed $29 billion by 2013, I think it’s safe to to say we can expect more players in the CPU marketplace.