Microsoft's Chief Exec Says Competing with iPad is a Priority

[Maura]

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The Telegraph is reporting today that Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, has told financial analysts at a meeting at Microsoft's headquarters in Seattle that Microsoft is working with the likes of HP, Lenovo, Asus, Dell and Toshiba to develop an iPad killer.

"We have to make things happen with Windows 7 on slates," he told the meeting, adding, "It is job one urgency around here, nobody's sleeping at the switch. We've got to push right now - right now - with our hardware partners."

According to the Telegraph, Ballmer was also big enough to say that he liked the iPad, although he was upset that it had sold so well! He said that the emphasis for Microsoft was now all on "tuning Windows 7 to new slate hardware designs."

The Telegraph notes that Ballmer's remarks follow on from the news last week that Microsoft had halted development of a dual-screen tablet-style computer called the Courier, so it would seem it is now concentrating on developing a device that can beat the iPad. Good luck with that!

Source: The Telegraph

 

[mossman]

My favorite clip from the meeting was when Ballmer noted that Microsoft had years of experience working with tablet devices, implying that experience would be a strategic advantage to them. The funny part of that phrase, of course, is look where it's gotten them. There is nothing in its history that suggests Microsoft can go toe to toe with Apple with this kind of device, so to actually use the past to make an argument for how the company will be positioned in this market going forward takes real balls.

I'm not a Microsoft hater -- I love windows 7 on my PC, and I swear by Excel -- but the facts are clear. The two O/S that really matter for tablet devices right now are Apple and Android. If Microsoft can do better than third place in this race, I will be surprised.

 

[Drag Bunt]

Competition is always a good thing. I wish them luck.

 

[Hasty]

Agreed.

 

[Photo1017]

Ms should take a lesson from firefighting and many other industries
When your priority is to catch up, you will never get ahead. A losing strategy :comingsoon:

 

[Outdoorsben]

IMO I don't think Msft can compete with something with such a head start and everything made in house. Microsoft is only a software company. They would have to rely on another companies hardware to run it properly.

 

[Seadog]

Yeah, Zune was such a big success.

 

[Hasty]

Microsoft is forging an alliance with the tablet manufacturer Hanvon
http://www.shanzai.com/index.php/market-mayhem/news/1526

 

[Drag Bunt]

Ms should take a lesson from firefighting and many other industries
When your priority is to catch up, you will never get ahead. A losing strategy :comingsoon:

MS was late to the browser wars, too. Anyone seen Netscape lately?

 

[iPadCharlie]

Obviously Steve Ballmer doesn't get it. And just who does "get it"? Jeff Bezos. I would have to say that Amazon could produce their own tablet in 6 months to a year after JB sends the memo. Amazon already makes the best selling single-purpose consumption device (well they sell it, they don't make it) and they already have a distribution system well in place with amazon.com. Marketing a "multi-purpose" tablet device is only a matter of finding someone to make the hardware and that doesn't seem like it would be too much trouble for JB.

I know it probably would never happen, but with the fact that Apple just removed the "adult" titles off of the top selling iBooks list, I suppose it is hypothetically theoretically possible that Apple could mandate that all app suppliers adhere to a certain "moral standard" at which point I am sure Jeff Bezos would wave his middle finger in the direction of One Infinite Loop and send the aforementioned memo.

I can't imagine that happening because Steve Jobs is, first and foremost, a businessman and his first allegiance is to the shareholders of AAPL. One of the reasons for the outstanding success of the iPad has to be attributed to it's ability to serve as an eReading device so it is Steve Jobs that owes Jeff Bezos a thanks. Of course there are far more people reading Kindle-formatted books than there are actual Kindle devices thanks to Apple, so this business relationship between Apple and Amazon is definitely a two-way street.

I am sure Steve and Jeff have a very healthy respect for each other, but I am sure they are also have a healthy respect for the fact that they are very much in competition with each other.

 

[pallentx]

My favorite clip from the meeting was when Ballmer noted that Microsoft had years of experience working with tablet devices, implying that experience would be a strategic advantage to them. The funny part of that phrase, of course, is look where it's gotten them. There is nothing in its history that suggests Microsoft can go toe to toe with Apple with this kind of device, so to actually use the past to make an argument for how the company will be positioned in this market going forward takes real balls.

I'm not a Microsoft hater -- I love windows 7 on my PC, and I swear by Excel -- but the facts are clear. The two O/S that really matter for tablet devices right now are Apple and Android. If Microsoft can do better than third place in this race, I will be surprised.

The problem is that they created something that was pretty cool and just sat on it. They didnt continually try to push the technology. I think their experience has the opportunity to give them an advantage. They have likely looked at all sorts of angles and ideas with slates already. They need to commit some real resources to it and make it really work right - and actually market it. I am convinced that a lot of the failure of the TabletPC was a lack of marketing. When I still carried my 5yr old Compaq TC1000, people everywhere would stop me and ask what it was. Most people had never seen one. That is a massive marketing failure - when people are wowed by a 5 yr old product they never knew existed.

 

[Finnedog]

I think that Microsoft is in a tough spot, they just can't copy the iPad; they have to incrementally jump ahead of the iPad.

Now after saying that; if they develop a good device that starts up in a smiliar time to the iPad and has a Microsoft Office lite and USB support and is stable they will get some market share. You do not have to look to hard on this site to find people who are livid about not being able to do simple things like organize photos, import a file or save a file to a USB device so there are people that would move in that direction even if it means giving up some of the magical things the iPad does.

In the mean time the iPad will get better so Microsoft has to shoot at a target that is moving fast and there could be 20,000,000 iPads by the time they get their initial product on the ground. With that large of an installed base there will be significant product inertia.

The iPad has created the market, it will be interesting to see how other companies try to take market share away from them.