Windows 8 tablets – too little, too late?

Microsoft may have left it too late to get into the tablet market. Unless it can pull something amazing out the hat in the form of Windows 8.

In Q1 2011, Forrester Research questioned people over their tablet preferences. 46 percent expressed an interest in owning one which ran Windows. In Q3 2011, Forrester repeated the question. A mere 25 percent of respondents now mentioned Windows. Which begs the question as to whether Microsoft has left it too late to get Windows on to a functioning, mainstream tablet.

Windows 8 is expected to be released late in 2012, although the rumors that its launch will slip to 2013 keep surfacing. That means that by the time a Windows 8 tablet appears on the scene, Apple will have released the iPad 3.

On paper then it looks as though Microsoft has blown it, and that it is too late to catch up to Apple and possibly even Google as well in terms of tablets. However, there is still a shred of hope for Microsoft. One that has saved many a latecomer in the past. You don’t necessarily have to be first to market, or even second or third, if your product blows everything else out of the water.

Microsoft knows this all too well as it was actually the innovator with tablets. But the Tablet PC Bill Gates was pushing a decade ago wasn’t what consumers were after. The iPad was. And Apple succeeded where Microsoft failed.

This basically means Microsoft has to deliver with Windows 8. And deliver in a big way. Windows 8 will have to be perfect right out the gate, be optimized for tablets, and provide a user experience not just equal but superior to iOS and Android. A huge ask at this point, granted, but not impossible. Let’s just agree it’s improbable and all leave with our heads held high.

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