Sleep easy, Tim Cook: Surface, Win8 tablet shipments looking poor Microsoft's Surface and OEM Windows-based tab sales are forecast to be low this Christmas season as price and "consumer confusion" limits appeal, bean counter IDC claimed. It seems World + dog can't get enough of the slab fondling phenomena as demand has forced IDC to up its Q4 forecasts by nearly ten million boxes but Apple and …
The Win Tabs enter the market place Android and iOS will have moved on an moved the goal posts so it will be back to square one for Microsoft.
They will then try to catch up and any early adopters will find the Surface won't be updated to the next new OS like they did before with the old Win mobiles.
Once bitten Twice shy as they say.
As it doesn't have a desktop and only runs apps you are stuck with it and will only see updates like you do now on OS.
Unless you love it from the start you will not be happy in the future as you realize just what you are missing.
iOS at least has full updates with extras roughly once a year even if the UI is the same.
Android has come a very long way since Gingerbread and as long as you hardware can cope you can update the software either via normal route or via cyanogen roms etc.
I expect iOS to start adding widgets etc in the future as the upgrade to refresh and for Android to continue to change.
Add to this RIMs new BBX (BB 10) and that could make a big comeback and take whats left of the others and maybe even head back towards the 15-20% if it takes off in business as well as in the third world.
This will IMHO leave MS stuck on low single figure % unless they compete on price at the $200 range for RT and $400-$600 for Pro version with keyboard included.
See, this is part of the confusion. Windows RT *does* have the Windows 7 desktop, just like the full grown Win 8. It's needed because the embedded Office is just the same Office you'll get on a desktop; designed for a mouse and keyboard with a tiny smattering of touch-enabled menus.
I predict punters tearing their hair out in rage and confusion.
Every time I switch from my Playbook to one of my Android tablets or someone else's iPad it always feels like a step backwards. The UI's are slow and clunky by comparison. The Playbook OS really is far superior to their competitors so they do have shot at a come back.
But I'm also interested in a real (meaning intel) Windows 8 tablet for when I need to run some real applications.
>The Playbook OS really is far superior to their competitors so they do have shot at a come back.
>But I'm also interested in a real (meaning intel) Windows 8 tablet for when I need to run some real applications.
You should avoid posting anon so you can pick out the right icon. Its either the Joke Alert icon or the troll icon on this posting.
I guess you aren't familiar with QNX or the playbook version of the OS. QNX has been used for such tasks as running nuclear reactors and unmanned aircraft as well as many less demanding tasks. It's a true industrial strength OS that's used where failure is not an option.
The UI on the playbook is well thought out, responsive and easy to use. You have the option of full multi-tasking with simple task management, swipe left or right to move to another task, swipte up to minimize. The hardware specs weren't surpassed by the ipad until the ipad 3, which came out a year later. And even then the playbook has features the ipad is still missing or that require yet another over priced adapter. The only complaints I have with the playbook is the lack of expandable storage and the fact that they haven't yet enable host mode on the USB port.
I bed to differ. The Surface is a full PC in a tablet case, not a side project. This is true even of the RT version. Even if Microsoft admits it was all a big mistake and stops making them, they will be usable as PCs until Win8's end of life, in what, 20+ years? Comparisons to the iPad are off-base, while comparisons to the Zune miss the point entirely.
It need to be cheap, and it isn't. Enterprise won't move away from MS, home users have no good reason to stay with MS. As a result MS are going to piss everyone off.
I'm not even sure Office on tablets can save it. This isn't 2005 any more - people don't print letters and work provides remote access via Citrix. Wife briefly expressed interest in a 'Windows tablet thing', then I told her no Chrome and she looked confused why not and decided to just buy a regular 12 inch Win 7 machine now.
while I am completely switching to apple at work and at home, I have a colleague who's a project lead by profession, and he's really switching to windows, winTablet, wp8 (quitting Apple for mobile). He wants to be able to use office software properly on any of those devices, where he left on the other device. He took this decision after getting an excel and pdf on his iPad while on vacation, which he couldn't edit. Of course he could have used iAnnotate and QuickOffice or Numbers, but he really thinks it's much better on the win eco-system (he saw a demo).
My opinion is that Microsoft's pull horse is office 365. If you like that, and there won't be an application on the iPad for it you'll switch to win at least for during work time. Might mean that I might also have two bags to choose before getting on the plane/train/car: the muscle bag (i.e. Microsoft) or the magic bag (i.e. Apple). Which makes the cloud sync even more important... So they will overtake pretty quickly android, I believe. Apple also on the long term, unless they publish the right office tools on the iPad.
You're assuming people can't live without Office which is not true, at least not according to the huge amount of Android, iPhone and iPad sold on the market. Your colleague you're mentioning, although real, he is not representative for the vast mass of consumers. That's why we're now talking about post-PC (like in post-Windows) era. Microsoft's attempt to bring back smartphones and tablets exclusively into the Windows realm can not succeed. Yes, there will be people happily buying and using Windows8 phones and tablets but Microsoft can safely kiss good-bye a 90% market domination. That's why we have all this innovation exploding in the smartphone and tablet area, it was and it still is a Microsoft-free territory. Apple and others just worked around Microsoft's stranglehold on the PC form-factor.
Windows has a long way to go to catch up with Android, and do people seriously want to use office applications on a tablet?
I've used Google Docs on my phone when I've had to, but it's a pain and I wouldn't miss it if it were not there. There's no way I would buy a tablet to use an office suite, unless I could use a proper keyboard with it, which negates the whole portable thing; so we're back to a straightforward laptop.
Of course, most people have no need to upgrade their PC if they are just using applications like Office; I don't think they're gonna want a tablet for that, in general. That of course is just my opinion.
They may well be right, probably are this year assuming they have some info from Chinese manufacturing and Redmond not known to us bystanders. But unless they have insider info their guess is no better than that of the man in the Clapham pub. Speculation on pricing of surface et al suggests niche but fact is we don't know the pricing yet, at least I certainly don't.
But 2016? Really. Even to make a forecast implies stupidy highest order.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
