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MS Global Strategy Chief: Tablets Are a Fad
jfruhlinger writes "Wondering why Microsoft isn't jumping into the red-hot tablet market? Well, maybe it's because Craig Mundie, the man in charge of the company's global strategy, isn't sure if the 'big screen tablet pad category' has staying power. Of course, it's possible that tablets will go the way of the netbook, but blogger Chris Nerney calls Microsoft's seeming total inaction in the face of a hot market 'mind-boggling.'"
I'm waiting for an improved tablet. What I would like to see is a tablet with an attached keyboard. Let's say, a device where the tablet and keyboard are joined by a hinge, so that it can be closed while not in use.
I think I'll patent that idea right now.
Wholeheartedly Agree with Microsoft.
I now fear comment retribution..
Microsoft effectively killed the netbook when they quit releasing versions of XP and forced everyone to move to Windows 7, which had higher memory and drive requirements. By the time you were done with a system that could run Windows 7 well, it wasn't that much cheaper than a regular laptop.
Tablets don't need to run a Microsoft OS. Apple and Google (and now Amazon) are showing you don't need to have a local PC to do most of the work you do with smartphones and tablets.
Netbooks crashed primarily because of MS and the manufacturers got featuritis. Netbooks aren't really sold anymore, I'm not really sure that there is a lack of demand, but as long as nobody is selling a cheap, ultramobile device, it's really hard for demand to develop and be sustained.
I've got an Asus netbook, and apart from the battery life, I love the thing, it's big enough to type on, but small enough to be readily portable. But, then again, it doesn't run Windows, and MS expects to get a share of any netbook sales.
I'm guessing it's because Microsoft doesn't have a touch-based UI for Windows that they're saying tablets are a fad. They thought the same about the internet and portable mp3 players too. Yes, they had tablet PC's long before others but it was a barely-modified version of XP that simply replaced a mouse with a stylus - it wasn't the same.
They'll get into the market as soon as they can cobble together a "good enough" touch-based UI for Windows and then leave it about 5 years later when they realize they aren't making any headway against already well-entrenched Android and iOS markets.
The Microsoft-dominated era is over unless they can figure out a way to execute at least as well as their rivals.
IMO netbooks weren't killed by the IPad directly, they died because they went the same route as the IPad. I'm no expert on the subject beyond that I happened to be working at staples durring the rise and fall of netbooks, and I can tell you why they stopped selling at the store I worked in. Durring the peak, the store carried 3 netbooks, acer 1 which depending on the sale of the week was between $150 and $200 weak processor 1gb ram if I recall, then a HP and a dell netbook that were $350-$400. The acer ones sold like hotcakes because for the most part people wanted a weak cheap PC for taking notes, ultra portability was a side effect. The $300+ netbooks, I never saw one sell, primarally because any application that extra speed and power would be wanted, is an application that you should spend those 300+ on a laptop and see it on a screen larger then 10". Eventually the acer 1 stopped being carried and all netbooks that were in the store were the same price as the laptops. I never saw another one get sold, then a month later the IPad came out and everyone attributed that to the death of netbooks. Honestly I think netbooks killed themselves by failing to see their own selling point, then trying to compeat on the wrong selling point.
Well if Mundie is correct, then his company spent the last ten years or so blowing their money on making a fad product. People seem to forget that Bill Gates himself championed their use. You can get a Windows tablet today probably. What Mundie really means to say is that Apple's vision of a tablet (which is different than MS) is a fad.
Really it sounds like sour grapes. Since 2001, MS has been trying to sell tablets. Tablets were slightly modified laptops with a stylus pen and a touch screen instead of a mouse. They never sold very well due to many factors. They were more expensive than laptops. MS never really optimized their OS for touch. They just swapped out the mouse for the stylus and called it done. They however would run Windows apps but offered few advantages over a cheaper laptop.
So here comes Apple with their tablet. Really, the iPad is just a giant iPod Touch. What MS never understood is that is what consumers wanted in a tablet. If consumers wanted laptop functionality they would have bought a laptop. What consumers wanted was a portable way of web surfing, email, etc. The laptop or MS tablet or smart phone were the only devices available. When Apple gives them another option, consumers responded and in 6 months, Apple sold more tablets than MS did in 9 years. That must burn MS.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
If you look back at MS's history, they generally try to downplay any new innovation they aren't actively in the market with. Smartphones, music players, tablet PCs, etc.
They don't have a tablet (at least not for sale or for show) so they're going to call it a "fad" and hope that keeps buyers from getting one and getting branded on it.
In the meanwhile their R&D department will be mad busy with their photocopiers, trying to make an "improved variation" on whatever they're labeling as a fad. No one believes them, but they're convinced that by simply making the statement, that somehow everyone will believe them and not create a market for the product, giving them time to scramble and rush something out the door in time to catch the wave.
18 months later they will suddenly stop calling it a fad and announce their new product, with surprisingly familiar looking features, plus a ton of additional bloat. Many months later, after delays, price increases, even more bloat, and cutting of key features that were pushed hard in the initial announcement, product will hit the stores. MS will announces this new product will "revolutionize" the market.
Despite outrageous amounts of funding and marketing, it will still bomb because the market has already been captured several years ago by what they were unsuccessful at downplaying as a "fad", it doesn't work like consumers are now expecting it to (even if some features may even work better than their ancestor in the market), is clumsy to use, and few will buy it.
After losing their shirts in a spectacular show of bad retail, someone will then get a clue and less than 6 months after product launch, an announcement will be made that the product has been discontinued. No official numbers will be given as to how much the fiasco cost the company, but inside sources will whisper tales of massive financial loss.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Asian manufacturers like Acer and ASUS starting releasing netbooks with versions of Linux on them because it wasn't possible to run Vista effectively on machines with first-generation Atom processors. They couldn't install WinXP on those machines because it had already reached its end-of-life, and MS wanted everyone to move to Vista. MS's partners like Dell and HP wanted nothing to do with netbooks because they feared, rightly I suspect, that these devices would erode the market for their more powerful laptops.
All that changed the day MS decided to extend WinXP licensing solely for netbooks. To protect its partners, MS imposed strict limitations on this license. "Netbooks" were defined by the screen size and limited to 1 GB of memory. Bigger screens or more memory meant no WinXP. Since Microsoft knew it was competing against a product that was free-of-charge, it dropped its OEM price for WinXP on qualifying netbooks to a mere $15 per copy, compared to four or five times that figure for OEM copies of Windows on laptop and desktop machines. Later they developed the crippled "Starter Edition" of Windows 7 to serve the same market and again charged hardly anything for it. It doesn't require a conspiracy theorist to see that these strategies were designed entirely to keep Linux off machines that might end up in the hands of ordinary people.
Well you can imagine what happened after that. The Dells and HPs of the world saw there was a demand for netbooks and began competing with the Acers of the world. People who wandered into Staples or BestBuy suddenly saw small form-factor devices with friendly old XP on them competing with systems offering some flavor of Linux with an unfamiliar UI. Guess which ones sold? Guess which OS comes with netbooks from Acer and ASUS these days?
Nowadays netbooks have 10" and 12" screens and often 2GB of memory. Which operating system are they running? Usually Win7 Home Premium. How much does it cost the OEMs to license that OS? A lot more than $15/copy I'm sure. The higher license fee pushed up the price of netbooks so they're no longer so price-competitive compared to low-end laptops. Dell and HP breathed a sigh of relief.
All this happened years before anyone ever touched an iPad.
this is why Microsoft must state that the tablets are a fad. They still have no OS to compete on the hardware and they have Apple to thank for a hardware base and software base to be compared to. They must say it's a fad because they have no excuse but the obvious to explain to investors why they are not in the market. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus