Traditional PC OEMs quickly dismissed the iPad as a PC add-on, but now Forture is reporting information from a Needham & Company that clearly shows that the iPad is eating the OEMs lunch. It seems more and more customers are choosing the iPad instead of a traditional PC. As an example Mac shipments to schools in Q3 2012 fell by 0.1% while overall PC sales dropped by 13.9% (keep in mind Apple sold 1 million iPads to schools during the same period).
As the iPad becomes more capable through better hardware and software, it has shifted from a purely consumption device to an entry level production devices (small video editing, image touch up, simple word processing/spreadsheets, etc).
It will be interesting to see if the upcoming Microsoft Surface tablet will be able to gain any traction in this competitive Apple lead segment.