Lets have fun with one of Mr. Rob Enderle’s anti-Apple article. If you don’t know Enderle, he is as anti- Apple as John Gruber is pro -Apple.
Enderle’s latest masterpiece is titled – How Microsoft’s Surface Might Kill The iPad. Of course, Enderle gives himself some wiggle room by using the word ‘might’ in the title. As a result if his hypothesis is not realized, he can always fall back on this word.
Enderle started off by stating:
[quote] Is the Microsoft Surface the next killer tablet? All these “killer this” and “killer that” comparisons get out of control. Every new challenger is hyped as the killer of what came before. But sometimes, it’s true. The iPad really turned out to be a PC killer. People bought iPads instead of buying new PCs, and that market took a pretty big hit. Apple pulled this off by building something that changed the rules for a PC, and we saw it differently.
Where the PC was about performance, the iPad was about portability. Where the PC was about mice and keyboards, the iPad opted for touch, and where the PC was generally about productivity, the iPad was about entertainment.
But it forced a hard choice that most of us didn’t really want to make: Tablet or laptop? This was because the iPad was really a netbook that swapped the keyboard and mouse for a touchscreen, and the iPad’s shortcomings made it a very difficult product to live on exclusively. Most iPad buyers had to keep their PCs or buy MacBooks, and that took what was already an expensive solution and increased it.
With the Surface, Microsoft is trying to reverse the deck and do to Apple what Apple did to PC’s.[/quote]
Enderle clearly missed the point of the iPad. Steve did not intend the iPad to be a full fledge PC, he saw it as a netbook killer and it managed to do just that.
Steve Job’s envisioned the iPad as the ultimate mobile personal computing experience for the next decade. The iPad is only 2 years old, however there is no doubt that in the next three years the iPad will start to fulfil this potential. To use Steve jobs analogy, PC will be like trucks, only use for power intensity work, while the iPad will be like the cars of today.
On Productivity
[quote] The Surface comes with Microsoft Office, the unchallenged, dominant desktop productivity product in the market. In fact, the ARM-based Surface actually bundles in Office, so you get productivity capability out of the box, putting it ahead of most PCs. But let’s not stop there, because unlike Apple, Microsoft isn’t being as restrictive of apps that fall into their turf. For instance, the apps can share data, so you can be looking up restaurants on one screen, and then simply click to bring up navigation, or some other app that can use the information from that initial screen. Microsoft also designed with a high degree of accuracy, so you can use a stylus, a tool typically preferred over a finger for creating art or editing pictures. These aren’t netbooks with touchscreens instead of keyboards, they are full PCs. That generally means you should be able to leave the laptop at home or in the office more often.[/quote]
“If you have a Stylus, you blew it.” Steve Jobs
Again, Apple hasn’t finish innovating on the productivity software side of the iPad as yet. Expect to see iCloud play a huge part in productivity capabilities going forward.
The necessity of a keyboard
[quote] A few years back, before the iPad, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were on stage, and Bill said something to the effect that tablets were the future for mobile PCs. Steve pretty much said that only idiots would buy a tablet, because a keyboard was simply too irreplaceable.
Now, both the iPad and Surface tablets have optional magnetic covers, but only Microsoft’s comes with a built-in keyboard. This makes it look like the Surface Tablet is a better presentation of Jobs’ vision than the iPad, and that is about as “in your face” as we can get.
I think it would be fun to run the clip of Steve Jobs calling tablets without keyboards stupid right after a clip of Tim Cook talking about tablets with keyboards as the ugly result of refrigerators and toasters mating, and then follow it with the number of iPad keyboards sold (the market for this has turned out to be impressively large).[/quote]
Steve Jobs also said that a 9.7-inch display on a tablet is the ideal size. The point here it that Steve’s vision has clearly evolved since that interview. His final vision obviously does not place a high emphasis on the keyboard. And with over 100 million iPad sold since launching in 2010, I guess he was probably right.
Marketing is key
[quote] After seeing the cringe-worthy Olympic ads that Apple did, I’m convinced that a lot of talented people left the company after Steve Jobs passed. This gives Microsoft the potential to out-market Apple this round. Kathleen Hall’s advertising team at Microsoft is considered one of the best in the business, but Microsoft traditionally under-funds advertising. If it does that here, this potential Apple killer will follow the Zune into the dustbin of history. The initial TV ads are good, but they’ll need Apple-like seeding and sustained marketing programs (read: loads of cash) to assure this “killer” product reaches its potential. If it opens its wallet wide enough for that, Microsoft may do to Apple what Apple did to it with the iPod, iPhone and iPad, and find that revenge can be oh so sweet.[/quote]
Keep dreaming Mr. Enderle, oh you just keep dreaming. Sweet Dreams!
Read More: DigitalTrends
