Friday, November 30, 2012

MS bungling it again?

Microsoft Introduces ... The Horse & Buggy Era, article.

Admittedly MacObserver can be quite blatantly anti-MS, but there's some point to it. I read recently that a market researcher hung out for two hours in a shopping centre by an Apple store and a Microsoft store. In those two hours, the Apple store sold an impressive eleven iPads, and the MS store sold zero Surface tablets. Zero! That's not a good number, unless you're a mathematician.

update:
Bruce said:
Microsoft has a tough job ahead of them, that's for sure.
One rationale for buying Windows for the home has been, "It's what they use at work." If Microsoft can convince IT departments of big companies to use Windows tablets, then they may have a chance.
All of the stuff that I could care less about on a tablet, like SAMBA and Active Directory, might help Microsoft by making their tablets more attractive to IT departments.

 Eolake said...
Yes, their biggest chance must be to leverage their stronghold, enterprise. I was just thinking that, when reading this article.
Microsoft's nightmare scenario is actually starting to take hold. 

... Although, as they point out, Bring Your Own Device is getting big, so it's not the nineties anymore.

Barclays Bank in the UK just bought over 8,000 iPads, apparently on demand from employees! Not Kansas anymore either.

5 comments:

Bruce said...

It took Microsoft quite a few tries to move from DOS to GUI. Windows 3 was the first version that was any good. That shipped in 1990, six years after the first Macintosh.

Similarly, I expect it will take Microsoft a while to do a good job moving from GUI to touch. The clock is ticking though - it's been nearly three years since the first iPad.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yeah, and the adoption of iOS and Android has been much, much faster than that of the PC. So one wonders how they'll ever catch up.

Anonymous said...

But that's not a fair comparison because of the amount of traffic in each store. If the traffic had been the same Apple would have sold the same 11 but MS may have sold 1, maybe. Let's be fair!

Bruce said...

"... So one wonders how they'll ever catch up."

Microsoft has a tough job ahead of them, that's for sure.

One rationale for buying Windows for the home has been, "It's what they use at work." If Microsoft can convince IT departments of big companies to use Windows tablets, then they may have a chance.

All of the stuff that I could care less about on a tablet, like SAMBA and Active Directory, might help Microsoft by making their tablets more attractive to IT departments.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes, their biggest chance must be to leverage their stronghold, enterprise. I was just thinking that, when reading this article

http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmers-nightmare-is-coming-true-2012-11http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmers-nightmare-is-coming-true-2012-11