Apple just announced that their long awaited iPad Tablet will be available to the public on April 3rd, with "pre-order" starting in one week. Will the iPad Tablet command the kind of lines and packing out for a couple of days on line, that the iPhone did?

Probably not, but the Apple is trying to use it to boomerang an existing niche market, the small tablet PC market, into competition with the laptop and note book market, to some extent. Apples expects there will be a downward migration from laptop users into iPad users, there buy increasing the size of the tablet market, and providing Apple with a lower barrier to entry.

There has been so much hype over this and rightly so. Pat of Apple's brilliance is the way it promotes and markets their products. Surely the style and functionality of the products are the cutting edge into the market, but apple knows how to create a buzz. Notice all those ads for iPad giveaways. They really aren't scams.

Sure you may have to subscribe to a couple of magazines and take a few surveys, but in the end you'll get your free iPad. This is where Apple is genius. Instead of spending millions on TV ads, they are approaching this launch in other ways. Instead they are employing the strengths and reach of the internet and combined with their own reputation and are getting the "buzz out on the iPad Tablet.

I personally believe it will be a hit, and a big one long term for Apple, who knows maybe the original version iPad will become collectors items, but I doubt it, at least not to the Apple faithful out there. Instead, if the iPad succeeds in gaining market share, but also growing the tablet pc market, then it will be far ahead of any competitors, just as the iPhone is today.