On Monday, Motorola Solutions announced the ET1 tablet, an enterprise-class tablet computer designed for a variety of vertical markets.

This isn’t a tablet for playing Angry Birds. What differentiates the ET1 from consumer tablets is a host of features for business. These features include, enhanced durability for working in rugged environments such as warehouses and hospitals, an optional barcode scanner and magnetic stripe reader for fast-paced verticals like retail, and hot-swappable battery packs with memory backup battery to retain RAM data for up to 15 minutes when the main battery is removed.

The ET1 also has secure system software—an enterprise-ready hardened version of Android. The device is password-protected so it can be shared and provisioned for each employee based on his or her level of permissions and access rights. Using log-on information, system adminstrators can automatically control and monitor use of approved applications.

Additional hardware specs include: Wi-Fi only connectivity, a 7-inch color display made of Gorila Glass, a screen bezel that can be customized to match a company’s branding, and front-and rear-facing cameras.

The tablet can run applications developed by Motorola’s partners and Independent Software Vendor (ISV) communites. It also runs Motorola’s portfolio of enterprise-grade software modules including RhoElements—a new HTML5 framework allowing businesses to develop and deploy custom apps on both Windows Embedded Handheld and Android-based devices.

Overall, this is hardly Motorola’s first foray into the tablet space. Although Motorola has since divided into two divisions, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions—it's the Mobility group (recently acquired by Google) that developed the consumer tablet offering, the Xoom. Motorola Solutions, which focuses on products for the enterprise and governments, is developing and marketing the ET1. No single vendor has yet dominated the enterprise space in the tablet market—so Motorola is making an aggressive push.

"As a mobile computing leader with expertise in retail, Motorola Solutions’ introduction of the ET1 tablet is a natural extention to our product portfolofio," Girish Rishi, Motorola Solutions' corporate vice president and general manager of mobile computing, said in a press release. The ET1 will enable store associates to leverage the sleek design and user experience of a tablet with the applications, durability, security, device management and lifecycle support that retailers require. The tablet’s robust feature set also will meet the critical needs of mobile workers in other enterprise sectors such as manufacturing and logistics."

The ET1 tablet will be available in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Source: PCMag

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