The new tablet dream. ABOUT 10 YEARS ago, a restless Bill Gates, unhappy with his company’s early experiments with pen-based computing, promised that he would fulfil a dream that he and others had “for years and years” about a new tablet device.
ABOUT 10 YEARS ago, a restless Bill Gates, unhappy with his company’s early experiments with pen-based computing, promised that he would fulfil a dream that he and others had “for years and years” about a new tablet device.
In 2002, Microsoft launched its Windows for XP Tablet PC Edition and several hardware makers introduced compatible tablet PCs to run on the operating system.
However, the device never really captured the imagination of the computing public and Microsoft appeared to have given up on the project. But the success of the Apple iPad, launched by its US rival in April 2010, seems to have woken up the software giant’s ambitions to revive the project.
This week, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, unveiled Surface — not to be confused with an eponymous product it launched about four years ago meant for store displays — a tablet computer that will operate on a variation of Windows 8. The launch also signifies Microsoft’s foray into the hardware business.
Tablets, which straddle the IT and telecommunications space, are dramatically reshaping the computing business. Last year, an estimated 65 million tablets were shipped around the world, with Apple’s iPad accounting for more than 60 per cent of the market. Korea’s Samsung Electronics is another aggressive player that is expanding its presence in Asia and in the developing markets.
The voice computer. Microsoft has had an unimpressive track record with another hardware line, its Zune MP3 player, which failed to make a dent in the market, or compete with Apple’s iPods. But the dramatic changes occurring in the telecom and IT segments have forced the software major to make an ambitious foray into the tablet business.
Disruptive technology? Tablets, which have made redundant intermediary devices such as mice, pens and cables for interacting with computers, symbolises ‘disruptive technology,’ a term coined by Clayton Christensen, a celebrated author and Harvard Business School professor. When the iPad was launched in 2010, PC sales outnumbered tablet sales 20 to 1. Analysts predict that by 2013, tablets will outnumber PC sales.
The second screen. Tablets, dubbed the second screen, are also threatening the first screen, or television. Earlier this year, The Nielsen Company reported that a record 111 million viewers watched the Super Bowl XLVI — which became the most-watched television programme in history — on their first screen.
But even before TV executives, advertising agencies and advertisers could pat themselves on their back, Flurry Analytics, a mobile application analytics firm, came out with the revelation that during the four-hour Super Bowl window nearly 100 million Americans — or a third of the US population — launched apps on their tablets and smart phones. App usage peaked during commercial breaks, indicating consumers opted for the second screen during such moments.
Disruptive technology indeed.
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