You remember all those rosy forecasts we've been seeing around tablet sales, well it turns out that Forrester believes they weren't optimistic enough. Newly revised numbers show an even more robust market than Forrester initially believed, and given the infusion of new players and platforms, that's probably not surprising.

This week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), we'll be hearing about a slew of new tablets with rumors flying about new Windows entries, as well as Android and others. Blackberry already announced the Playbook and HP (NYSE: HPQ) has reportedly scheduled an event for early February where it's expected to release a new line of tablets based on the Palm OS. (You may recall HP purchased Palm last year.)

With all of this action, you might expect that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), the original tablet maker with iPad, might see its domination begin to erode, but Forrester still believes that even with all of the added competition (or perhaps because of it), that Apple will still be the dominant tablet manufacturer into 2012.

Forrester believes it's more than just the number of tablet models that will drive bigger numbers. Instead, they see people replacing these devices much faster than they would a PC--more in line with an MP3 player or a cell phone. This too makes sense because as consumer devices, people will likely gravitate to the devices with the latest features.

Regardless, it looks as though the tablet future is very bright indeed, although it should be interesting to see how the market share for players behind Apple breaks down over time.

For more information:
- see the Forrester blog post

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