Posted on 01/08/2014 12:35:28 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Despite receiving support from nearly all of its hardware partners, Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Windows 8 has yet to catch on as a tablet operating system. Last July, Microsoft took a $900 million writedown on its Surface tablet. Though sales have improved, Windows tablets remain largely in the minority -- IDC's most recent data shows Microsoft's operating system with just 3.4% of the global tablet market.
But even that modest success could soon unravel. Both Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) and Samsung (NASDAQOTH: SSNLF ) appear poised to aggressively target the enterprise tablet market in 2014, perhaps the only market where Windows tablets have an advantage.
Samsung unveils the Galaxy Note Pro at CES
Samsung has been a longtime Microsoft partner, manufacturing and selling a number of Windows 8-powered tablets under the ATIV brand.Yet, its lineup of new devices could dampen demand for Windows tablets, particularly among business users.
At CES this week, Samsung unveiled its "Galaxy Pro" tablets -- a family of Android-powered tablets aimed at enterprise users. The flagship device sports a 12.2-inch screen, but Samsung is also selling Pro tablets in 8.4- and 10.1-inch variations. Regardless of the size, each Pro tablet comes loaded with a number of business-focused apps, as well as a special interface, and a number of productivity features (like the ability to have four app windows open at the same time).
Alongside its Pro tablets, Samsung has created a new business unit -- Samsung Enterprise Services -- a group centered around getting businesses to use Samsung-made mobile devices.
Will Apple roll out an iPad Pro for business users later this year?
Apple is expected to follow Samsung into the larger tablet arena later this year. For months now, various reports have suggested that Apple has a larger iPad in the works -- a variation of its popular tablet, likely to sport a 12- or 13-inch screen. Given Apple's propensity to use the "Pro" moniker with its Macs, Apple's new tablet could, like Samsung's, carry the Pro tag line.
It could also be intended for business use, at least according to analysts at Evercore Partners. They expect the device to ship late in 2014, and be aimed at the enterprise market. Many businesses already use the iPad in some capacity, and offering a larger, beefier version could reinvigorate iPad sales.
Will Windows tablets survive the onslaught?
If Evercore is right, Apple's new iPad could take a toll on Windows 8 tablet sales. Evercore believes Apple will pitch the tablet as sort of a middle ground between a tablet and traditional laptop -- a hybrid device in the mold of Microsoft's own Surface. Given the iPad's established mobile ecosystem, a hybrid device aimed at business users could be far more attractive than any competing device running Microsoft's operating system.
Still, there's one major factor working in Microsoft's favor: Its ownership of Office. Both Apple and Samsung's tablets will not be able to access the full version of Microsoft's dominant office software suite, at least not without streaming it from another PC. In the end, that could limit their adoption among business users.
Regardless, the trend toward larger, "Pro" tablets from both Apple and Samsung should be viewed as a major threat to Microsoft's Windows business, at least in terms of its success as a mobile operating system.
We now have 5 Surface tablets for us and the kids, we all love them. One is a surface pro which I replaced my wife’s laptop with for Christmas!
You can get used surface RT’s on eBay for about $200 with a touchpad now that the new generation is out. They come with a OFFICE PRO 2013 built in for FREE - which includes Outlook!
The app store is decent, however, the browser is a fully functional Internet Explorer, so you can just go to the website if you can’t get an app for a particular site.
Its been a few months since I bought some Surfaces for the kids, injust checked eBay and they are now in the $280 range, still a good deal.
I still have the original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and it’s still great for what I use it for (mostly travel use.. email, web surfing, etc)
Windows 8 and RT are doomed to fail against Android and iOS. Windows, prior to Windows 8 is fundamentally an industrial product for industrial use, and it’s not really needed or wanted on consumer slabs or phones. Therefore Microsoft never be relevant in the mobile world if they persist with trying to foist Windows onto mobile devices for consumers.
On the other hand, trying to foist a cell-phone GUI like Metro UI onto industrial :PC users is the absolute height of insanity.
With Windows 8/Windows RT/Metro UI/Apps Store, Microsoft managed to produce the perfect lose-lose-lose situation. And it took a clueless bozo like Ballmer to pull off this hat trick. Ballmer managed to make the wrong decision 100% of the time. Heck, even flipping a penny would have produced better results than Ballmer, because it would have been right half the time. And a WHOLE bunch cheaper than Ballmer too!
Which is why Microsoft is failing and will continue to fail with its mobile “strategy”, namely their notion of “consumerization of IT”, i.e., we’ll jam Windows onto “mobile” devices and call it good. Such an approach would be equivalent to Peterbilt, who makes the tractors for 18 wheelers, deciding they needed to suddenly and desperately get into the consumer automobile market, and the only way they could think to do that was to make tiny, passenger-sized 18-wheelers.
The equivalent approach by Microsoft shows just how intellectually bankrupt they are when it comes to innovation. The fact of the matter is that the average consumer is desperately FLEEING from all the myriad of Windows problems that they’ve been forced to endure for decades, namely a balky, buggy, brittle, virus-prone OS that does little except get in their way.
On the other hand, IOS and Android devices are successful precisely because they ARE NOT WINDOWS: they JUST WORK and they are SIMPLE devices for SIMPLE use! Consumers don’t need and don’t want an 18-wheeler to dash to the grocery store with to pick up a few groceries.
Even worse, in addition to plastering the horrifically awful Metro UI GUI on top of Windows 8 so Microsoft could pretend an 18-wheeler is an automobile, Microsoft also made the completely insane decision to try to FORCE their entire installed enterprise and SMB base to embrace that same horrifically awful, productively killing, unintuitive, ergonomically destructive touch interface on ALL PCs! Continuing to use the 18-wheeler analogy, it would be like Peterbilt deciding to put automobile controls in their REAL 18-wheelers in addition to the mini 18-wheelers they were pretending were automobiles.
As a consequence of this total ineptitude, Microsoft doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hades of becoming anything more than a niche player in consumer mobile, while at the same time totally alienating their bread and butter enterprise and SMB customers with an OS that tries to make all PCs look like cell phones.
Right now, Microsoft is at the point with their disastrous Windows 8/Windows RT/Metro UI/Apps Store mobile strategy as Barnes and Noble is with their failed me-too NOOK strategy, and I predicted close to two years ago that, like CEO William Lynch, Ballmer would be forced to leave Microsoft within a year.
If Microsoft is lucky, they can then woo back their POed enterprise and SMB customers with Windows 9. If Microsoft persists with the insanity of trying to foist Metro UI and touch on industrial customers, Microsoft will be in real trouble.
Now, that’s cool.
But how much?
I’ve used Apple, Android and Windows phones. They’re all very good, but I prefer the Windows interface. Unfortunately, there aren’t many apps.
who is that doofus in the clone outfit?
Lenovo ChiComs make a v good product.... I have a 17” laptop that runs flawless.
What you are correct about is that the rest of their customers are PO'd by their usual strong arm tactics of forcing vendors to switch from a popular OS to a lame on on desktops and laptops where it makes zero sense.
One thing I do on the side is fix PC's and I will get a call from someone telling me they bought a new PC (they never ask me first) and "Where's my start menu?" So I bring my windows 7 disks and install it, usually dual boot so they can switch to 8 if they feel like beating themselves up. The MS business model has to change to match the market, but I'm not sure if it will.
RE: I’ve used Apple, Android and Windows phones. They’re all very good, but I prefer the Windows interface. Unfortunately, there aren’t many apps.
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Windows Phone has thousands of apps available although not as plenteous as Android or the iPhone.
The likes of Skype (naturally), Twitter, WhatsApp, BBC iPlayer (UK), Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Angry Birds, TuneIn Radio, Shazam, Spotify, Netflix, Evernote, PayPal, LinkedIn, Tumblr, WordPress, Foursquare, LivingSocial, and Runtastic are all present and correct.
So is eBay, though it’s lacking a little functionality. IMDb, too, has an app but it hasn’t had much in the way of updates for a while, similar to Google Search, while Rdio lacks some basic functionality compared to its iOS and Android brethren. But there is a fully functional Words With Friends courtesy of Zynga, which will please many would-be defectors. The less said about Fart Machine, the better.
What…no Facebook? Actually, there is – Microsoft has taken the trouble to develop an incarnation off its own steam, given that Zuckerberg & Co. haven’t bothered. As for Groupon, well, Nokia sorted that one out.
There are are many, many more little ditties on the Windows Phone Store too, from calculators to flight search engines. And when you consider that all you really need is an Internet connection and a mobile browser, there’s no real reason why Windows Phone shouldn’t appeal to large segments of the smartphone-buying population.
I wonder how many of the thousands of apps out there in the market people really care about....
I used only a few trusty ones myself.
That's me. You already listed mine: ebay, Netflix, Tune-In.
I don't know if people realize how much cheaper a Windows phone can be. I used to have a Verizon Android at $75/mo with unlimited calling and data (no text). It was a 2-year contract.
I now have a T-Mobile Nokia Windows phone for $30/mo., with unlimited data (4G), 100 talk minutes/mo., and unlimited text. It's a monthly contract, and the phone only cost $100 up front. The network isn't as good as Verizon, but I mainly use it at work, where reception is fine.
And the iPhone and iPad ChiComs do a good jobl, too. On that subject I think that the Chinese experiment with "a little bit of freedom" won't work well for them in the long run. People used to poverty and tyranny yearn for freedom and some wealth. Funny how here in the U.S. people born into wealth and freedom yearn for tyranny and redistribution.
Milton Friedman believed that economic freedom would eventually lead to political freedom, which I believe was one of his justifications for free trade.
“Windows 8 is a tablet OS which is why it is so hateable on laptops. It is not windows “jammed” onto a mobile device, it is a horrible stripped down version of windows that does ok on ARM and other underpowered but battery friendly hardware. By doing ok, I mean it is functional.”
Actually, you meant “Windows RT” rather than “Windows 8”, but everything else you say about it (RT) is correct.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, RT is all but dead because sales were so horrible that ALL OEMs were forced to withdraw from the market because they were losing money on RT devices, which is one of the reasons the OEMs are losing faith in Microsoft.
The other reason RT will soon die is that Microsoft alienated their potential developers with how Microsoft distributes and sells development tools, plus Microsoft’s poor revenue sharing model on the Metro Apps Store. In addition, the only devices that HAVE to have Metro Apps are RT devices, and since almost everyone skips Metro on PCs, and since tablet sales with Windows 8 have gotten off to an excruciatingly slow start, the Metro Apps store is very unlikely to ever reach a critical mass of the Apps that people actually WANT. That likely failure to reach critical mass is probably the final nail in the RT coffin.
I heard $150. Should be a possibility at that price. We’ll see when it’s actually released.
Do you know how much code 8 and RT have in common? I thought that one of the major motivations for 8 was to support ARM?
Just about all Windoze laptops are designed and engineered in Taiwan and built in China. They are then sold under say-— the Dell, Asus, HP etc label
When I buy a Lenovo I am buying direct from ChiComs thus cutting out the middleman. Of course I wish world economics were such that the items were designed engineered manufactured in America
Apple does some of its design and engineering and some is done by Taiwanese partners. Then built-assembled in ChiCom land
Why the Windoze 8 putdown? You can get back the start button with a simple download such as “classic shell” that will have it looking close enough to Win7. You then bypass the stupid tiles...... which are suitable for tablets. And on phones
Windows 8 does not have media center. This is the only drawback compared to Win7.
“Do you know how much code 8 and RT have in common? I thought that one of the major motivations for 8 was to support ARM?”
They do share some code (though the binary for one is compiled for Intel 86 & the other binary is compiled for ARM anyway), but my understanding is that RT is essentially a hollowed out version of windows 8. Some of the W8 API is present in RT, but not all of it, plus RT has its own RT API. RT was Microsoft’s effort to support ARM, not W8. The Metro UI was supposed to provide the commonality, but under the hood they are two different beasts. Pretty much like painting a truck and a car red, and then saying they’re pretty much the same thing because they both are red colored.
Because ordinary people don't like it and don't want to do "simple downloads" to fix it.
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