Is the iPad a Restatement?

Many of you have heard by now of apple's newest product called the iPad. It seems like an amazing, shiny, new toy except here's the catch: there already is an iPad. Fujitsu is the name of the game this time. It created an iPad that was sold primarily in the United States to "help shop clerks verify prices, check real-time inventory data and close sales on the go." The New York Times goes deeper into this report and the drama between the two companies. However, it is still known that the Fujitsu iPad was created in 2002 using Microsoft’s CE.NET operating system with a smaller, 3.5 inch touchscreen with the ability to use Wi-fi and Bluetooth and support the new Skype program. Just like Apple's new iPad, the Fujitsu iPad is extremely portable, and perhaps even more so than Apple's. The main attraction for Fujitsu's older product is that business owners would no longer have to tote a computer around with all this technology right at their fingertips.

In addition to the little accident that the iPad had already been invented, Apple faces a problem with it's products name. Many women have been associated the new iPad with feminine hygiene products and the New York Times reports:

people from Boston to Ireland are complaining that “iPad,” in their regional brogue, sounds almost indistinguishable from “iPod,” Apple’s music player.

So will Apple's iPad be as successful as it's other products? We will have to wait and see.