Microsoft’s iPad Killer
That’s what Reuters is calling Surface, the new tablet from Microsoft. Windows 8 will be a touch friendly OS. But it’s not an iPad killer. People like their iPads and they will have them no matter what new gizmo comes out.
15 Responses to “Microsoft’s iPad Killer”
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June 20th, 2012 at 10:31 am
Of course, when Windows 8 comes to the desktop pretty much everybody looking at a new computer – especially businesses – will be moving to Apple and will want iPads instead. The only real exceptions will be die-hard Apple haters and people who can’t afford to pay $1000 for $500 worth of hardware. But that last group probably won’t be buying the Surface, either, and the first group is just as likely to buy an Android tablet as an MS tablet.
I figure Win8 will be the newest iteration of Windows ME, popularity-wise. Why they thought a phone/tablet interface would be a good idea for a desktop still confuses me.
June 20th, 2012 at 10:32 am
Kim Komando says >yawn< because no one cares about Microsoft. I myself am curious, having avoided the iPad, and needing a new computing device. I think I'll wait until I can touch it to form an opinion. But it looks like it could be okay.
June 20th, 2012 at 10:32 am
Nonsense. You know darn well it’ll kill the iPad just like Glock put all those 1911 manufacturers out of business.
June 20th, 2012 at 10:47 am
I looked at their video and thought… you missed the entire point. It’s as much an iPad killer as teh Zune was an iPod killer.
June 20th, 2012 at 10:47 am
As an Apple user (I have two MacBook Pros sitting on my desk, an iPhone in my pocket, and an iPad at home), I hope Microsoft has a hit here. Competition is good.
And I think Microsoft is scratching an itch with the Pro version. Tablets are consumption devices, and Microsoft looks to have found a way to make a tablet both a consumption device and a production device. If they execute this well, I might be enticed into buying a Microsoft product for the first time in 15 years.
June 20th, 2012 at 11:07 am
Ok, I’m a Microsoft developer, and I’m knee deep in this.
First, this is possibly a *laptop* killer, not an iPad killer. It serves a completely different niche.
Second, Win 8 has two modes, Metro and Standard. Metro is more for touch systems, the standard will be similar to Win 7. You do not have to use Metro on a desktop.
Third, I’ve been developing for Microsoft for over 16 years. Every year, I’m told how Microsoft is a dying company, how the latest Apple product is going to put them out of business, yadda yadda yadda. 16 years later, and I can still make more money writing .Net than I can iPhone apps (that requires more luck than skill to survive). When I was downsized, I was unemployed for less than a week (and that delay was mostly scheduling interviews). Because, Microsoft is dying, you see.
Yeah, you have a point there. Which is why my company is inundated with requests to help massive, Fortune 500 companies develop Win 8 apps…. *rolls eyes*.
Ain’t nothing wrong with Macs. They’re solid computers, OSXIIV is a great OS, the interface is slick as shit. If you’re happy to spend twice as much for half the computer but have everything work flawlessly together then Macs are a good idea.
But believing that Microsoft is going out of business because a new OS or a new product or whatever is the same song and dance I’ve heard for years, and it hasn’t happened yet and the demand for people who can write Microsoft centric applications (especially corporate applications) is sky high, clearly not a sign of their impending doom.
Both companies make great products. And as said above, you need ’em all otherwise competition fades and the products become shittier over time.
Hence why I’m DYING for someone to make a real competitive product against Office.
June 20th, 2012 at 11:13 am
All this “Microsoft is going out business!” talk is a mirror-image of the “Apple is going out of business!” talk of 15 or so years ago.
Apple’s business stunk 20 years ago because Apple products stunk (LC II, anyone? Or how about the 5200? And WTH is a Pippin?)
Since Vista, MS has done a good job of kicking out good products. I just wish they’d pick a UI and stick with it, but that’s my only major complaint.
June 20th, 2012 at 11:20 am
You can never shake a True Believer’s faith. If MS thinks it will actually sell Surface tabs to Ipad owners, they are crazy.
I have a Xoom tab running Android 4.0, and it will do everything an Ipad will do, it just doesn’t have the name, so my IT BIL pans it, since he owns an Ipad. We’ve even sat side by side in his house, performing various tasks on our separate tablets, and he never came up with a task mine couldn’t do, but that still didn’t shake his faith.
Me? I believe in diversity. That’s why I have battle rifles from 4 different countries in my gun safe…
June 20th, 2012 at 11:41 am
ipad- big phone, does apps.
surface – a computer, that can run real programs. Dont need an app for doing 2 or 3 small editing fuctions, poorly, when I have phtoshop or whatever other image editor.
Same goes for office docs and pretty much anything.
June 20th, 2012 at 12:48 pm
You know, I keep hearing that, but how the frak do you do it? Because I have yet to figure that out, without having to edit the registry, which is beyond the average consumer, or install a third-party program.
For phones and tablets, maybe? Or maybe they think Metro won’t go away, or are large enough they don’t want to juggle licenses when they buy new computers. Also, vendor “lock-in” because the company’s entire infrastructure and IT department are Windows based will force some companies to stay with MS whether they want to or not, and they’ll just have to deal with the productivity loss and retraining costs with their employees having to learn how to turn their computers off when they leave (among other things).
But I will admit that I was exaggerating a little.
OTOH: My office juggled XP licenses whenever we replaced a computer, just to avoid the ball o’ suck that was Vista. We currently have one computer with Windows 7 (because it could no longer be avoided), and I expect the others will be upgraded while Win7 is still available just so that we can avoid Win8 for as long as possible. I also will be willing to bet that switching to Macs would at least be seriously considered if Metro becomes unavoidable. I expect a lot of small businesses will do this as well.
This is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks for Apple in the consumer world (vendor/infrastructure lock-in being the biggest for the business world). Honestly, if Apple dropped their prices by just 25%, they could probably double their sales, easily. As it is, I think MS is going to be badly surprised by the number of people that Win8 + Metro drives to Macs, even with the Apple premium.
June 20th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Given the normal Microsoft pattern, 8 will suck just like Vista did and companies will stick with the installed base of XP and 7.
Microsoft isn’t going anywhere, up or down. They’re a utility at this point and the installed base alone means they’ll be around for years to come.
June 20th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Contra Andy, I’ll point out that lots of people seem to “produce” on iPads…
But with Andy, I also think it’s good competition, and that maybe a “full PC tablet” will finally take off this time, despite being miserable market performers for the past decade and change – the new OS should help.
The keyboard thing looks very interesting, but nobody got a hands-on, so we don’t really know how good it is. The lack of hands-on demos makes one nervous, naturally.
(And I’m … dubious about the wisdom of two things with the same name but different architectures that won’t have the same [entire] UX or run all the same software.
The RT one is Metro-only, as I understand it, and naturally only runs ARM software. The other one is dual-mode, and runs standard Windows x86 software.
This is going to cause some extreme unhappiness if Microsoft is not astonishingly clear in its marketing. I pity the poor bastard who buys the RT model expecting it to run whatever-Windows-App-he-wants.)
June 20th, 2012 at 6:30 pm
I don’t see apple ever making inroads into the enterprise market and while the new MS tablet may not kill the iPad it can do something the iPad can’t do which is seamlessly integrate into the enterprise environment. And if MS has any sense THAT is how they will market it.That is how MS won the PC wars and how they can win the tablet wars.
June 20th, 2012 at 9:28 pm
Everyone likes to think Apple is invincible. But they booted Jobs out once, and nearly destroyed the company. My guess is that this won’t kill the iPad.
But eventually, the bean-counters will return to run Apple. And they will run it into the ground. Just like before.
June 20th, 2012 at 9:32 pm
With the iPad eating up the tablet market. And Android and the iPhone fighting it out over the phone market, I think MS is afraid of being left out of the new technology mix.
If I use Android on my tablet and phone, it isn’t a stretch to think of using Android – or some other version of unix on desktop or the notebook. Same argument applies if you are an Apple user. And with Libre Office being delivered to the home user for the low-low cost of free, well, there you are.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not selling MS short, but they have to be getting a little nervous about the new mix of technology.