Microsoft shoots down Windows Phone 7 tablet hopes, says tablets are PCs
Claiming that tablets should be considered personal computers rather than new age mobile devices, Microsoft on Tuesday again dashed hopes of tablets running the company's new mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7 OS.
Speaking at Microsoft's Worldwide Partners Conference, Windows Phone president Andy Lees argued that consumers ?want people to be able to do the sort of things they do on a PC on a tablet.?
"We view a tablet as a PC," he said.
As such, Lees maintained that using the OS Microsoft built for phones on a tablet would be "in conflict" with its belief in having the complete power of a PC on any design.
A few years back, virtually every tablet on the market ran some flavor of Windows. That quickly changed with the advent of the iPad in 2010, which took just 9 months to eclipse a lifetime of prior Windows Tablet PC's sales. Since then, Windows-based tablets have continued to plummet, and now account for a meager 1 percent or less of the overall market, according to market research firm IDC.
During his keynote speech, Lees instead turned his focus to Windows 8 OS and its expected networking and printing support enhancements, which he expects will drive adoption of Windows tablets moving forward, adding that the software will run on ?systems on a chip? designs.
In time, he expects that PCs, tablets and phones will come together into a ?unified ecosystem.? Lees' remarks echo comments made by CEO Steve Ballmer earlier this year promising that "Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise."
Windows 8, expected to launch sometime in 2012, will be the only tablet OS issued by Microsoft. It is also suspected that when the next incarnation is released, Windows Phone 7 will be faded out and replaced completely by Windows 8. Ballmer admitted on Monday that sales of Windows Phone 7 have gone from "very small to very small," though he believes the company will make "a lot of progress" in the smartphone market going forward.
At first glance, Microsoft's next-generation operating system looks very similar to the recently released phone platform, especially given the included touch-centric interface.
Windows 8 was announced by Mike Angiulo, corporate vice president of Windows Planning, Hardware and PC Ecosystem at Microsoft, during a technical demonstration in early June this year. In a move seen as an attempt to break into the tablet market, the company has designed the new OS to run on ARM-based architectures in addition x86.
According to Angiulo, Windows 8 aims to make the ?user experience a natural extension of the device, from the time you turn on your PC through how you interact with the applications you know and love.?
Speaking at Microsoft's Worldwide Partners Conference, Windows Phone president Andy Lees argued that consumers ?want people to be able to do the sort of things they do on a PC on a tablet.?
"We view a tablet as a PC," he said.
As such, Lees maintained that using the OS Microsoft built for phones on a tablet would be "in conflict" with its belief in having the complete power of a PC on any design.
A few years back, virtually every tablet on the market ran some flavor of Windows. That quickly changed with the advent of the iPad in 2010, which took just 9 months to eclipse a lifetime of prior Windows Tablet PC's sales. Since then, Windows-based tablets have continued to plummet, and now account for a meager 1 percent or less of the overall market, according to market research firm IDC.
During his keynote speech, Lees instead turned his focus to Windows 8 OS and its expected networking and printing support enhancements, which he expects will drive adoption of Windows tablets moving forward, adding that the software will run on ?systems on a chip? designs.
In time, he expects that PCs, tablets and phones will come together into a ?unified ecosystem.? Lees' remarks echo comments made by CEO Steve Ballmer earlier this year promising that "Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise."
Windows 8, expected to launch sometime in 2012, will be the only tablet OS issued by Microsoft. It is also suspected that when the next incarnation is released, Windows Phone 7 will be faded out and replaced completely by Windows 8. Ballmer admitted on Monday that sales of Windows Phone 7 have gone from "very small to very small," though he believes the company will make "a lot of progress" in the smartphone market going forward.
At first glance, Microsoft's next-generation operating system looks very similar to the recently released phone platform, especially given the included touch-centric interface.
Windows 8 was announced by Mike Angiulo, corporate vice president of Windows Planning, Hardware and PC Ecosystem at Microsoft, during a technical demonstration in early June this year. In a move seen as an attempt to break into the tablet market, the company has designed the new OS to run on ARM-based architectures in addition x86.
According to Angiulo, Windows 8 aims to make the ?user experience a natural extension of the device, from the time you turn on your PC through how you interact with the applications you know and love.?
Comments
Now that 350 Million PCs next to 60 Million Macs looks let dominate.
By next year the iPad will probably be pushing the total Macs upwards towards 90 - 100 million.
Still not worried?
Of course it is a mistake and error for them to be making. It paints Windows Phone 7 as a dead-end operating system for one, even though in reality it's tablet/touch features will migrate to Windows 8 just like iOS features are entering Mac OS X.
Also Windows 8 on a tablet might be fine, but legacy apps will remain a complete pain to interact with in tablet mode, nevermind Flash, etc, which don't understand touch vs mouse pointer.
Windows 8 tablets will therefore be doomed to be dual-mode devices. Dock them, and they behave like a slow desktop PC. Undock them and they behave like rather bit bloated tablet. At least the same data will be available to both front-ends, and I presume that Office will provide a tablet UI as well as a desktop UI... it will, won't it? I mean, iWork has done that for a year...
Typo - should be virtually every tablet
"Tablets are PC's", well, that's marketing speak, and why not? Everyone (at least Apple fans) seem to be thinking "oh, here they go again, trying to elevate tablets as touch PC's", when, if you listen carefully, what they're talking about is really migrating PC's (at least the OS) closer to tablets. Which, if you look at Apple with Lion, they are not alone in doing.
With that logic, you then must change the 20 million Macs sold each year and move that upwards towards 60 Million.
That's priceless - by their own definitions their PC marketshare is decimated.
He is funny as hell
So Ballmer says Tablets are PC's now... This guy can contradict himself more.... He went saying the competition (Apple) was able to sell 20 million computer and they 350millions but he didn't add the iPad to those numbers...
He is funny as hell
Agreed.
But on the other hand, the iPad is the paradigm for the successor to the PC. It serves the same purpose and function that PCs did for the vast majority of casual users, but does it easier and better. PC's will continue to exist for those who need a tool. For those who need an appliance, it will be the iPad or one of those also-rans once they get something close to parity.
So, I guess in a way they are PCs, evolved.
The sooner the Fin's drop him off a building into a snow heap, the better.... AND, now that his new toy Skype has sent out a survey to all of it's 'users' a survey asking what SMS and IM services you use, does this mean that Bomber and his flock of deaf-monkey hacks is trying to get Skype into the IM business?? WHY??
What a clown show.....
"Tablets are PC's", well, that's marketing speak, and why not? Everyone (at least Apple fans) seem to be thinking "oh, here they go again, trying to elevate tablets as touch PC's", when, if you listen carefully, what they're talking about is really migrating PC's (at least the OS) closer to tablets. Which, if you look at Apple with Lion, they are not alone in doing.
Listen to this poster. There's truth in there.
With Lion and iOS 5 Apple is tying to blur the lines between a Mac and an iOS device. They just aren't using the same words as Microsoft. This is the way the industry seems to be headed.
So Ballmer says Tablets are PC's now...
Actually, he's said that consistently in the past.
However, that said?
This guy can contradict himself more.... He went saying the competition (Apple) was able to sell 20 million computer and they 350millions but he didn't add the iPad to those numbers...
He does seem to conveniently ignore factoring in the iPad when counting Apple's PC sales!
He is funny as hell
You mean funny looking!
Actually many M$ bashers have grabbed a hold of this story and expounded the usual rants. Point is that he is correct.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Depending on which figures you use, somewhere around 60-90% of tablets sold in the world run iOS and most of the rest run Android - so they're NOT running a PC operating system the way Microsoft is defining it.
Not to mention, of course, that when the only tablets available ran Windows, they hardly sold at all, but with the advent of the iPad and Android tablets, the market has taken off.
The market has clearly decided that they don't want (in general) a full-blown PC operating system on a tablet. Looks like Microsoft blew it again. They think that EVERYTHING is a PC - and they're wrong.
If not, why would anyone in their right mind buy one?
Apple has seen fit to include prior year models in their OS upgrades, I cannot see why they can't do the same with a Windows phone...
"Tablets are PC's", well, that's marketing speak, and why not? Everyone (at least Apple fans) seem to be thinking "oh, here they go again, trying to elevate tablets as touch PC's", when, if you listen carefully, what they're talking about is really migrating PC's (at least the OS) closer to tablets. Which, if you look at Apple with Lion, they are not alone in doing.
Actually, Apple fans were among the first to try elevating tablets as PCs. There were several articles on AI claiming "Apple would be number x, and have y percent marketshare If iPads were counted as PCs..." For example:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...r_in_2012.html
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles..._included.html
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...ufacturer.html
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...us_market.html
And since those numbers favor Apple, the Apple fans of course agreed with the "marketing speak" even though others (myself included) objected to this play on words. But if Microsoft is now starting to play this game, then sure, let's all start calling an iPad a PC.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Depending on which figures you use, somewhere around 60-90% of tablets sold in the world run iOS and most of the rest run Android - so they're NOT running a PC operating system the way Microsoft is defining it.
Not to mention, of course, that when the only tablets available ran Windows, they hardly sold at all, but with the advent of the iPad and Android tablets, the market has taken off.
The market has clearly decided that they don't want (in general) a full-blown PC operating system on a tablet. Looks like Microsoft blew it again. They think that EVERYTHING is a PC - and they're wrong.
You obviously didn't read the rest of my post. Heck, you mention the key point yourself "the way Microsoft is defining it". My argument is that Microsoft is changing it's definition while keeping the message the same. Pretty smart actually. They are correct, the line between PC/tablet is blurring. Tablets are getting more PC type features, PC's are borrowing from tablet interfaces, as both start interacting more, they'll converge even faster.
You are also missing a key point in Apple's success. The fact is that people don't give a flying flip whether or not the tablet's OS is a "full blown PC OS" or not, folks want a very responsive and productive user experience. Apple lives on the fact that they don't want folks to think about the mechanisms, focus on the experience. iOS _is_ a full blown PC operating system. Do you remember when the iPhone was first introduced? "It runs OSX" Steve said proudly. Don't hear that anymore right? So who really cares now?
Quote me on this, in 4 years the terms PC and tablet will refer only to form factor, and NOT the capabilities of the systems with regards to their OS's. So in that regard, M$ is correct. Everything will be a "personal computing device" in one of four (at least) form factors. Desktop, laptop, tablet, pocket (e.g. iphone, ipod touch). And under the covers, they'll all be running the same base OS per manufacturer (e.g. Apple/OSX, HP/WebOS, RIM/QNX, M$/Win8, etc).
The latest iterations of Windows and OSX are polishing some UI aspects, but the real leap is in sync, cloud, whatever you want to call it - taking a unified storage system and making it device and location independent...
When programs generally sucked, the hobbyist found their joy in the latest and greatest OS update and all the new features that application programmers were too dumb to build. Now, the API foundations are laid for some truly crazy applications to be built in fairly short order... and again - the OS 'version' becomes irrelevant.
That's priceless - by their own definitions their PC marketshare is decimated.
No, I don't think so. In the mind of Ballmer there is a distinction between tablet PCs (which will run some version of Windows) and what he has called "media tablets" like the iPad and Android tablets. It is a convenient splitting of hairs for the express purpose of NOT having their PC marketshare decimated.
Actually many M$ bashers have grabbed a hold of this story and expounded the usual rants. Point is that he is correct. How long did we have to listen to Google/pundits repeatedly say that Android 2.x was NOT a tablet OS. There is obviously a difference between the user experience on a tablet and a phone. Since Apple designed it right from the get-go, they could leverage effectively a single OS on both platforms. Google and M$ didn't share that same foresight. If anything else, M$ is doing the right thing based on what Google went through. Don't get side tracked by the press/vocal minority. Concentrate on the bigger picture because reactive answers will be trounced soundly and are a non-starter.
"Tablets are PC's", well, that's marketing speak, and why not? Everyone (at least Apple fans) seem to be thinking "oh, here they go again, trying to elevate tablets as touch PC's", when, if you listen carefully, what they're talking about is really migrating PC's (at least the OS) closer to tablets. Which, if you look at Apple with Lion, they are not alone in doing.
What Ballmer means by "every tablet is a PC" is "every tablet is Windows machine". This is clear with them adding a touch layer to Windows 8 instead of new dedicated tablet OS based on WP7 technology.
... Ballmer admitted on Monday that sales of Windows Phone 7 have gone from "very small to very small," though he believes the company will make "a lot of progress" in the smartphone market going forward. ...
Ballmer is hoping that Microsoft's smartphone hardware b!tch, Nokia, will release a magical iPhone-killer. Good luck with that.
... It is also suspected that when the next incarnation is released, Windows Phone 7 will be faded out and replaced completely by Windows 8. ...
This is the same thing Microsoft did to Windows Mobile 6.x. They killed the old unsuccessful platform, then dumped a new and totally incompatible platform (WP7) onto the market. Developers had to start from zero since WP7 had nothing in common with WinMob. Users were left to twist in the wind with no upgrade path and no way to migrate their data from WinMob to WP7.
Why did that happen? It happened because Microsoft has zero ability to plan the evolution of their platforms. This incompetence stems from having zero concept of what they want their users to be doing 5 and 10 and 20 years from now. Which subsequently leads to zero concept of the incremental changes needed to get themselves, their developers, and their users to those goals. So, when Microsoft has run out of useless features to pile on to a platform instead of usefully evolving it, they just kill it off and start from scratch. Zero ability to plan ahead.
... "Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise." ...
See? No new ideas. Ever.