Ballmer: Microsoft Is Working Hard To Bring Rival To iPad

[engine]

Ballmer: Microsoft Is Working Hard To Bring Rival To iPad [news.cnet.com]

Acknowledging Apple's early success with the iPad, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer insisted Thursday that the software maker is hard at work on Windows-based tablets. "They'll be shipping as soon as they are ready," Ballmer said, offering few details on the products, which he said will come from partners, not Microsoft itself. "It is job one urgency. No one is sleeping at the switch." Speaking to financial analysts, Ballmer said the goal is "not just to deliver products, but to deliver products that people want to buy."

[incrediBILL]

The momentum this year belongs to Apple products because consumers seem to like them more than other brands.

Well that's a nice candy coated view of iWanks because they only have a single unfriendly source to buy from so it's pretty easy to see a herd of them nestled outside some single source store. The rest of us are easily found spread out amongst the vast competition in stores with names like Verizon, Sprint, T-mobile, and not hovering outside an iChurch waiting to get our next communion wafer-thin phone.

It seems that as US population is aging, consumers want one standard user friendly system, for their computer, phone, tablet, entertainment center, and guess who have it?

Really?

Most of the people I know, people with actual money, seem to have Windows PCs, laptops and netbooks paired with BB, Android, even (gasp) LG and Samsung phones. Even those people that got forced into using some pile of iJunk still don't also use their computers.

Heck, my nephew has some iLaptop mess but he still uses a BB phone.

Of course he lives in NY and we know how good iReception is in NY :)

All this is irrelevant because the real issue I see with Microsoft trying to get back into the phone market in a major way is trying to push some of the current contenders out of the way and that means entering the playing field posting a LOSS just to get shelf space, something alien to the MS mentality.

Not to mention the fact that the current players, in a way better position, will cut margins like crazy to keep MS out of the loop if they're smart.

[claus]

> Apple sold over 3 million iPads in 3-4 months.

That sounds like a lot, but it isn't. Compared to how many PC's, notebooks, netbooks (or cellphones for that matter) sold worldwide every month, it's a vanishing small number. That kind of sales could easily be accomplished by selling *only* to Apple fanatics that would buy anything with an Apple logo (and then only a fraction of those people)

If Microsoft had developed a product which sold only 4 mio copies I'm sure that product line would be discontinued pretty fast. That's why I don't understand what's going on here.

Then again, if MS executives still hold on to the view that tablets are the platform of "the future" ...then there's really no way they can avoid throwing good money after all the bad ones already spent on that niche.

[J_RaD]

^ exactly

157 million copies of w7
300 million pc sold a month.

why is everyone getting caught up in the little tiny bubble markets.

microsoft has nothing to fear from apple, and taking the tablet market is just MS stomping out that little 1% that it didn't control.

[incrediBILL]

Just look at gaming console sales and you'll know why MS wants into the tablet and phone niches.

Worldwide sales figures [en.wikipedia.org]

1. Wii – 70.9 million as of 31 March 2010
2. Xbox 360 – 41.7 million as of 23 July 2010
3. PlayStation 3 – 38.1 million as of 30 June 2010

Compare that to the current adoption of smartphones [en.wikipedia.org]:

According to a study by ComScore, in 2010 over 45.5 million people in the United States owned smartphones and it is the fastest growing segment of the mobile phone market, which comprised 234 million subscribers in the United States

With just the US market estimated at of 45M and growing out of a total subscriber base of 235M - even 10% of the gross total is worthwhile, then think worldwide numbers.

Tablets are just another part of that 3G connectivity world, a part MS is losing that was just recently dominated by low end Win XP netbooks now being replaced by much cooler tablet toys.

Imagine in a year when there may be over 10M iPads (or more) and MS is losing all those customers to the competition.

If they can incorporate some of the cool features and software they did with Surface technology into a tablet it would blow the doors off the market.

[J_RaD]

OH NO MS IS NUMBER 2 IN CONSOLES
SOUND THE ALARMS!

I think people will see smartphones and pads as nothing but bank account charges. Kinda what cell phones are today, nothing but a straight money suck into your bank account.

[incrediBILL]

Forgot to throw in the netbook sales #s [eweek.com]:

In a Dec. 22 report, the firm showed that 2009 was an excellent year for netbooks, sales of which grew 103 percent from 2008 totals, with an estimated 33.3 million units shipping in 2009.

The iPad is barely launched and already did 10% of the last years worldwide total of netbooks with half the year left to sell more.

I've read estimates that claim by year end sales could be as high as 10M units but I expect a more conservative number like 6M myself.

That should put MS's goal to get into the iPad business into a better perspective because that's a lot of computing devices sold with no financial gain for MS.

[J_RaD]

i wouldn't exactly call the ipad BARELY LAUNCHED. whenever apple does a new product it has its lemmings foaming at the mouth 6 months before, then standing in line for 12 hours.

people wern't exactly doing that for a netbook.

[wheel]

why is everyone getting caught up in the little tiny bubble markets.

The ipad/tablet computer isn't a tiny bubble market. It's a game changer. If you don't own one, go get one - you'll change you mind. I use it now almost as much as I use my desktop - actually I use it instead of my desktop. My desktop stays work, but the ipad does all my nonwork stuff. Games. Reading, News. Search/web. etc. It's real easy to migrate all non-work related computing stuff. Ipad is to computing as Facebook is to the web.

And I'm neither a gadget buyer, nor a tech head, nor a mac fan. I run my computers for work mostly and I run linux, not MS. Yet the ipad has changed my daily habits. (you can't read the BBC news on your computer at the breakfast table. You can read the BBC news on the ipad at the breakfast table).

My friend runs an international electronics firm. Unlike me, he is a tech head, got the ipad as his birthday present when it came out. And he's already using his ipad for youtube video presentations at client's offices. When he contrasts using a laptop vs the ipad (instant on, no worry about wifi, no pulling out of a case, etc et etc) I almost feel embarrassed to own a laptop.

[J_RaD]

its a bubble market because only 3 million own one. That isn't some huge number

300 million.
3 million.

the numbers speak for themselves.

apple WANTS the ipad to go crazy because they have been reduced to a gadget maker.

apple makes servers, computers, apple TV, an OS, software...but nobody knows this. all they know is iphone, ipod, ipad.

apple makes computers? really? I never knew. How far we have fallen.

[graeme_p]

Ipad is to computing as Facebook is to the web

Something I might use occasionally if its free, but am not that bothered about? Yes, I realise a lot of people are heavily into Facebook, but far more are light users.

I do want a tablet, but not an Ipad. If I could run Linux on a tablet I could move most of my work to it, at which point I get rid of the laptop and use a desktop PC (ergonomically preferable, cheaper, more reliable) when at my desk, and the tablet when not.

TO put it another way, I want a Nokia N900 with a bigger screen.

I am not quite sure I get the point about instant on etc: a laptop only takes a few seconds to wake from sleep, people often carry netbooks without a case, and how is the connectivity any different.