Sprint: 4G tablet coming in 2011, 80% of CIOs want tablets

Rest easy, Sprint fans. A 4G tablet is on the way from the carrier next year, company executive Paget Alves revealed to Forbes in an interview.

Not that there was ever any question Sprint would bring out a 4G tablet. The company has been offering 4G service since 2008, longer than any other carrier, so it’s to be expected that it would be the first to unveil a 4G tablet. Sprint already offers Samsung’s 3G Galaxy Tab Android tablet.

Alves, Sprint’s president of business markets, said he also expects many of Sprint’s tablet customers to be business users, revealing that 70 to 80 percent of chief information officers the company speaks with are interested in deploying tablets. Apple noted similar business interests for the iPad during its most recent earnings call — a sign that tablets are destined to serve as more than just consumer devices for play.

Alves wouldn’t reveal which manufacturer would develop its 4G tablet, but he did say that Sprint will soon offer tablets with operating systems other than Android. That opens the door for the BlackBerry Playbook tablet, a Windows-based device, or even something as far-fetched as a WebOS device from HP.

Sprint is also looking at affordable plan pricing options that will spur on the adoption of 4G. The company already offers discounts of around $10 per month for business users with both cellular and mobile broadband service. “Lots of different prices are being tried right now,” Alves said. “People like unlimited, predictable plans, so we’re looking for something that’s simple and easy.”