Microsoft’s iPad Battle Plan for PartnersPosted on 01/25/2011 10:38:53 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Even though Microsoft’s public stance, when asked about the impact of Apple’s slate is “iPad? What iPad?”, the Redmondians are preparing the company’s partners for battle in 2011.
Microsoft is making available to its reseller partners marketing collateral to help them defend against the iPad’s encroachment into the enterprise market. I had a chance to check out a PowerPoint dated December 2010 on “Microsoft Commercial Slate PCs” that the company is offering to its partners to help them explain Microsoft’s slate strategy to business users.
Check out ten slides from Microsoft’s iPad Battle Plan for Partners
(Excerpt) Read more at zdnet.com ...
Getting interesting.
Maybe aggressive competition will bring the price down to Kindle territory.
The iPad or the Microsoft (yet to be developed ) tablet?
Both. ;-D
Comments include discussion of Android...
Well, that plus drastic drops in price for materials. When it first came out the parts for the iPad were estimated to cost Apple around $250.
An iPad that will generate a blue screen of death. I can’t wait.
Microsoft does have a point on much of this, as Apple’s portables only have about a foot in on the enterprise side for functionality. However, this is a case of Microsoft saying “Don’t buy their stuff, we’ll have something better soon!” It’s the old IBM vaporware tactic for killing competition.
Microsoft has the knowledge base and enough money to do the software development....
The features that iPple lacks, and which only iPple cultists claim are not features pretty much market themselves.
I have zero use for machines without replacable batteries and removable storage. I like a selection of screen sizes. My tablet has FM radio - no big deal, but nice. I have flash, though that’s not needed for my use.
NVIDIA Tegra 3, equipped with 1.5GHz quad-core madness, teased by a familiar slide
See #12.
You’re probably right.
Microsoft is the product that most people buy because they do not dare do anything else. You don't hear of a lot of people lining up to buy a new Zune, or the latest software release. Microsoft's mantra is Customer Satisfaction - at which it scores lower than it should. Ever call MSFT Customer Support?
Apple has embraced the 1990's Japanese concept of 'Customer Delight'. By an iPad, and as time goes by - it's capabilities increase. It acts flawlessly, and it does more and more as time goes by - and this increased performance is FREE.
There is a reason why Apple has such a loyal following. Apple understands that service after the sale is important, people are willing to pay more for a product that is well made, well designed, robust and has a great support super-structure. I offer similar products as a demonstration: Lexus (Toyota), Acura (Honda) and Infinity (Nissan).
Compare these 3 companies against Cadillac and other car companies. There is a reason why once an American car owner tries a foreign car - they rarely ever go back.
MSFT has let their users down time, and time again. WinCE, Win95, Win ME, Win Vista, Zune and Windows Mobile all come to mind. Windows is doing a lot of posturing with a touch-screen interface. But, based upon the failure that their Windows based Tablets have had - they have very little idea how to write a viable touch interface. Meanwhile, Apple is eating up the marketplace.
Consider, Apple created a touch interface, a tablet that was wildly successful despite the 'experts' predicting a huge fail. The price point with all the R&D that Apple put into the product, is actually LESS than what the copy-cat producers are selling their inferior products for - and the copy-cat producers got their mobile OS for FREE!!
That, and they seem to be pushing the "all things to all people" approach. And what's the cost of that in terms of complexity, reduced performance, and possible fragmentation?
If MS would simply get manufacturers to produce a good quality tablet and MS produce a slim and fast OS, they could compete just fine. The iPad has a lot lacking. Sad that outside of Apple no one is making a decent product.
None of this is about the power. It’s about integrating enterprise-friendly tools into the devices. For example, the iPhone got decent encryption and remote wipe a while back, a step in the right direction for enterprise adoption.
Working with HP, MS had a Win7 tablet in the works, but the release of the iPad killed it. The hardware for that HP slate looked pretty sweet, but Microsoft is still scrambling to produce a decent tablet OS.
The iPad has a lot lacking.
First generation Apple products usually do. It seems Apple puts all the energy up front into building a game-changing product overall, then starts adding features with subsequent versions.
remeber when people were laughing at microsoft and the xbox?
microsoft? video games? ha ha ha
not so much anymore.
Remember when Yahoo was big?
times change...
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