While others keep iPad ghettoized as a “media tablet” analyst firm Canalys is boldly classifying it as just another PC form factor and in so doing, shooting Apple up to #3 on the worldwide marketshare chart behind HP and Acer but ahead of Dell and Lenovo.

Canalys urges vendors to accept new market realities, by recognizing pads as an integral new component of the overall PC landscape. Unlike other analyst companies, Canalys incorporates pad shipments, such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Apple’s iPad, in its total PC market report.

‘Pads gave the market momentum in 2010, just as netbooks did the year before,’ said Canalys Senior Analyst Daryl Chiam. ‘We are encouraging vendors to plan for the future and not to remain stuck in the past.’

‘Any argument that a pad is not a PC is simply out of sync,’ said Chiam. ‘With screen sizes of seven inches or above, ample processing power, and a growing number of applications, pads offer a computing experience comparable to netbooks. They compete for the same customers and will happily coexist. As with smart phones, some users will require a physical keyboard, while others will do without.’

Just like Acer got the bump for netbooks, Apple is getting the bump for tablets. Fair or unfair?

[Canalys]

During Apple’s last conference call, Steve Jobs positively cooed about Apple’s iPhone passing RIM’s Blackberry in sales last month. If anyone had any doubts, Canalys says it’s so (for whatever that bag of analysis is worth). According to Apple Insider, they pegged the market as Nokia 46.6%, Apple 17.3, RIM 15.2, and Windows Mobile 13.6. (Google’s Android, of course, was not yet launched and Palm… er… Palm?)

While some have cited Bold delays, Storm warnings, an iPhone 3G honeymoon, and other reasons to explain Apple’s good fortunes last quarter, JD Powers 2008 Business Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study gives an even more interesting answer: Business users like the iPhone better!

Blackberrys are okay, and Palms are teh sux, by contrast, according to the survey. The iPhone’s edge? ease of use, feature set and design. Engadget points out that the iPhone scored 5/5 on features, in spite of our ongoing complaints about the lack of cut and paste, A2DP, MMS, etc., etc. ad naseum infinitum.

ahem

So maybe, just maybe, users prefer a smaller set of features done delightfully well to a gobsmack of them cobbled together with near impenetrability?

Who’da thunk it?