Microsoft’s would-be iPad competitor faces long odds

16 years ago

“Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, who reportedly will unveil new software for tablets next week, will face skeptics who say his company won’t soon narrow Apple’s iPad lead,” Ian King and Adam Satariano report for Bloomberg News. “‘By the time Microsoft gets it figured out, everybody will already own an iPad,’ said Keith Goddard, CEO of Capital Advisors Inc., an investing firm in Tulsa, Okla., that holds Apple shares. ‘That train has left the station.'”

“Microsoft will announce a full version of the Windows computer operating system that runs on ARM Holdings Plc technology at the Consumer Electronics Show, which begins in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, two people familiar with Microsoft’s plans said last week,” King and Satariano report. “The new Windows version would be tailored for battery-powered devices, such as tablets and wireless handsets, the people said… Microsoft is taking software designed for use with a mouse and keyboard and adapting it to a touch-screen, according to the people familiar with the matter. That will require developers to rework PC programs to make them useful on a tablet.”

King and Satariano report, “Apple has redefined consumer expectations for what a tablet computer should do, says Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner Inc. Instead of requiring the use of a stylus pen to serve as a computer mouse, the iPad allows people to navigate using their fingers. ‘Apple did this year what no one had done in the previous 10 – crack that space between the PC and the phone,’ said Gartenberg, who’s based in New York. ‘Microsoft has been working very hard at putting a square peg in a round hole.'”