People in the know and strokers of beards have grave doubts that Apple's tablet will make the big splash that the tame Apple press appears to expect.

According to DigiTimes market watchers have come out with mixed shipment expectations for 2010. The most positive claim that tablet sales, including Apples will top as many as 8-9 million units this year. However those who are less optimistic look to shipments of merely 1-1.2 million units.

Skeptics pointed out that sales of the MacBook Air have not measured up to expectations, meaning that not all Apple-branded products can expect guaranteed sales. Few believe that people will be so dumb as to pay $600-1,000 for a device equipped with a virtual keyboard, simply on the promise of improved touch input or e-book functionality.

If sales of the device are weaker than expected, other PC vendors might give up on their plans to release copycat products and that might hamper any growth of the tablet PC market in 2010. (You say that as if it were a bad thing. sub.ed.)