A window closes on Microsoft
This is a pretty interesting article with several points to consider. Now that Courier has disappeared and HP has seemingly broken ties with MS in favor of building their own OS, does Microsoft and Windows have a place in the tablet market? Right now it seems like people are split 50/50 on that one. A lot of people feel that Windows Phone 7 is just the beginning and will evolve into a slim and well optimized tablet/device platform. Others say that Windows is just too damn big and bloated and has no business being shoehorned into devices. But the bigger question is, does MS still have a place in the tablet market even though they have no tablet?
As I stated before, I think Microsoft just got shut out of the tablet space. They have no offering of their own and even if speculation is true and MS is still cooking something, they better get it to market quickly since they are already a million units behind Apple. In 60 days (if that long) they will be another million units behind. Apple has OS 4.0 getting ready to come out and a new iPhone version. By that time we will be heading into the Christmas shopping season and back to school shopping. iPads, iPod Touches and iPhones will be flying off the shelves. By the end of the year there could be 4-6 million iPads in the wild with no MS offering to counteract it. If MS does come out with a tablet they are going find themselves in a serious deficit right off the bat!
And that doesn’t take into HP getting their tablet out the door before MS and stealing their thunder. Or perhaps even a tablet or Netbook from Google.
Ballmer mocked Netbooks as well as Google’s way of handling multiple OS platforms. Seems now more than ever he is eating those words. Major players are jumping on the mobile wagon and MS is still trying to find a place to hitch their wagon.
Windows is too big and bulky to be a device OS. Microsoft always wants to do too much and put in too many flashy lights to try and grab people’s attention. The OS should be tiny, but then they should offer all sorts of addons through their App Store. Microsoft doesn’t seem to understand that. They need to get out of the one size fits all model and write the OS specific to a device.
If you read the article there are comments about how the mobile game is just beginning. I don’t believe that for a second. The mobile game has been in play for years on the Apple side. Maybe the "Windows" or "MS" mobile game is just getting started, but for others they are seasoned players and clearly understand the rules.
I think MS is clearly confused about their place in the tablet world.
