In June, Apple had WWDC 2012, Microsoft announced Surface, and Google showed us Nexus 7.
Microsoft and Google started controlling user experience via hardware design. Sounds familiar?
Yes, they are following what Apple has been doing for ages.
Having said that, Microsoft is approaching tables from different angle. For them, tables are one of PC styles. Surface runs Windows 8, which means it can run programs like Office and Photoshop. Touch enabled Windows is what Metro-style is all about. They want existing users and developers to welcome Windows 8.
Microsoft is aiming those areas that iPad / Mac Book Air do not handle well. They are not directly competing with iPad.
As a result, I believe they will succeed to great extent. Other hardware venders will follow the same path to provide even more hardware options for Windows 8. As many people any way buy Windows based PC every now and then, there will be people buying those tables to replace their old Windows PCs.
On the other hand, Google showed us Next 7 tablet.
Android-based tablets have been losing the fight against Apple iPad. As long as Google continue to fight directly with iPad, they will not win. Not in a near future, to say the least.
Nexus 7 will probably compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and nothing will move iPad’s share in the tablet market.
I understand Nexus 7 has many core CPUs and high-spec hardware components. But why they need that?
Because the OS is not efficient enough, they need horse power to cover it?
Most tablet buyers won’t even know how many CPUs Nexus 7 has. We need to wait and see how usable it actually is when it’s available in store for demo.
ok, is Apple still be the King for long? Will iPad stay the top selling tablet for coming years?
It really depends on how much people accept Microsoft’s Metro-style OS. There aren’t many applications for that yet. We need to see how fast the number of quality applications increase. But for that, there has to be many users and developers. Catch 22.
Microsoft needs to sell dreams – games, musics, movies, business softwares. Microsoft has to make people believe they are buying a dream device and grab the initial mass so that show ball can start rolling.
If they succeed, it should be easy to win over Goole since Goole tablet already failed. It’s just a cheaper alternative to iPad.
If they fail, they will fail a big time.
By the time Apple’s next OS is officially announced, we should again observe what actions Microsoft and Google will take. I’m looking forward to see how much integration is done between iOS and OSX (and iCloud).
The second half of this year has just begun. Let’s keep our eyes on these three companies.
