Will the Marketplace Swallow a W7 Tablet?

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The iPad was unleashed on the unsuspecting world of consumer electronics in April 2010. For better or for worse, being the first to market and selling nearly 12 million units, the iPad, a brand new class of device, has set the benchmark. Apple has shown the world that the tablet form factor has a market (whether it existed before the iPad or whether the iPad created the market is a whole new topic.)

Most blogs on the subject of the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2011) agree that the focus of attention was on tablet computing.

There are now a plethora of tablets on offer that compete head-to-head with the iPad. Most of these devices are Android-based systems - some are a serious threat to the iPad (Samsung's Galaxy tab, for one), others are poorly designed, cheap knock-offs. Then there is the Blackberry Playbook (to be offered for sale in early 2011) which runs RIM's Blackberry Tablet OS. The Kindle 3 eBook reader, while not really a tablet computer, offers web browsing, which sort of blurs the line between eBooks and tablets, at least for the segment of tablet users who primarily use the devices for internet and reading.

One company has been conspicuously missing from the tablet marketplace: Microsoft (proof-of-concept designs and announcements of soon-to-be-released devices notwithstanding.)

Is Microsoft too late? Does the Windows 7 operating system have enough class to make it a serious contender in this growing market? Has the doorway to the latest bubble closed to the world's third largest IT company?

Windows Phone 7 was also late to market. The WP7 operating system is, by all reports, very slick. But the iPhone has been around since 2007 and is at version 4.0; Android is about to release it's seventh version (Honeycomb, version 3.0); WP7, launched in November 2010, is currently at version 1.0 - this is ignoring the atrocious WinCE OS, which is not a smartphone platform.

Sales of WP7 phones have been slow. Announcements by MS that they sold 1.5 million WP7 devices is slightly misleading, as most of the devices were sold to mobile phone carriers and not directly to consumers. Perhaps Microsoft can convince the public to swing away from iPhone and Android, which have their own problems. But MS entered the smartphone arena very late in the game and right now it doesn't look too good for WP7.

Now Microsoft is trying to jump onto the tablet train. How can it muscle its way into the market?

Perhaps it doesn't have to push its way in. The iPad is primarily a consumer device. What it has to offer is squarely targeted towards individual consumers. It's a web browser, a photo viewer, a multimedia device, an eBook reader, etc. In other words, the iPad is primarily a content-consumption device, not a content-creation device.

Certainly, there are business applications for the iPad. That is, there are programs for the iPad that are definitely business oriented, and businesses have already demonstrated how the iPad can function as a business tool. However, since it cannot replace a netbook, which is what it will need to do in order to be adopted by business, it primarily remains a consumer device, not a business device.

A Microsoft product, however, may find its niche in the corporate environment. If Windows 7 for tablets can be easily integrated into existing Microsoft infrastructure (and, let's face it, Windows remains the top selling OS in the world), and if MS Office (especially Outlook and SharePoint) runs flawlessly on a Windows 7 tablet, and if content creation on a Windows 7 tablet is easy and painless, Microsoft might have a fighting chance. Blackberry's Playbook tablet, which is designed as a business tool (although their website also claims to support "hard core gaming") , may meet stiff competition from a properly designed Windows 7 tablet.

Other hurdles MS has to contend with include:
  • Its reputation for producing bloated software, as opposed to Apple's "slick" UI

  • Microsoft's vulnerability to viruses

  • Getting the "touch" experience to be at least as good as Apple and Android (it has been reported that Windows 7 isn't the most touch-friendly OS)
  • iPad 2.0

But the tablet market is still very young. It is certainly not as far advanced as the smartphone market was when Microsoft released WP7. Also, don't forget, the corporate world has embraced Windows 7 for the PC, so if MS gets the tablet version of Windows 7 right, they might be able to carve a rather large niche for themselves.

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