Companies Are Looking At Windows 8 Tablets Instead Of iPads

Business Insider ^ | 11/01/2012 | Julie Bort

[SeekAndFind]

While most companies have no plans to upgrade to Windows 8 yet, we keep hearing about those who do.

IT departments are more likely to bring Windows 8 into the company as a tablet instead of upgrading all the company's PCs to the new operating system.

That's according to an informal poll of 700 IT execs taken by Fiberlink, which makes software for tracking mobile devices.

In another survey of 175 small businesses by iYogi Insights, 29% had no tablet and are considering Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets rather than an iPad. Of those that already had an iPad, 38% said they are considering changing to Windows 8.

That's not to say that Windows 8 tablets will kick the iPad out of the office. It won't. But Windows 8 could win out when a company has a specific application it wants to create for a tablet. For instance, Rooms to Go, a furniture retailer with $1.3 billion in annual revenue, has developed a Windows 8 app to use as mobile sales tool by hundreds of salespeople who work on the floor of the company’s 190 showrooms, reports Steve Rosenbush, at the CIO Journal.

Here's a closer look at how 700 IT pros plans for buying Windows 8, according to Fiberlink.

[tacticalogic]

Can't argue with you there. But that was also when IT still didn't see much use for a GUI, so Apple was shut out anyway.

I might buy that if they didn't have a keyboard.

There were other personal computers that didn't have a GUI, and enterprise IT didn't adopt them either. When you could put a 3270 adapter and get access to mainframe data, then it was worth the investment. It wouldn't have mattered if you opened that 3270 session with a mouse click or a key press.

[newheart]

It wouldn't have mattered if you opened that 3270 session with a mouse click or a key press.

LOL. Those were the days, eh. When the ships were wood and the men were steel.

[dfwgator]

If you know Java, you can pretty much develop Droid applications.

[meadsjn]

LOL. Those were the days, eh. When the ships were wood and the men were steel.

Please tell us you are kidding.

Looks like Windows 8 is Microsoft's way of helping Obama drive the last nail into the coffin of American business.

At the link below, you can see how Office 2013 will show you a gif image of what a spreadsheet chart looked like when American business was still alive. Sorry, there are no similar gif images of boring old raw data in rows and columns.

Heaven doesn't need numbers; I guess neither does Hell.

Excel In 2013 With Microsoft Office

[Cronos]

Not really. Windows is just more open to creating specific or tailoring applications. Apple is great for users who don’t want to tinker around. IT guys at home use Linux

[Cronos]

it’s just the image of charts. I look at literally millions of rows of data in datawarehousing and I can tell you that graphs have their role, whether in Spotfire or business objects or Cognos or microstrategy or excel. It helps pinpoint a trend and then one can drill down to a lower granularity to pinpoint the issue in numbers

[tacticalogic]

LOL. Those were the days, eh. When the ships were wood and the men were steel.

Apple has been pissing on enterprise IT for decades. If IT kicks iPads to the curb in favor of W8 RT tablets, then they had it coming.

[kevkrom]

I like Apple's products, but the ability to quickly put together a custom program [app?] without Apple's explicit permission is still a powerful selling point.

Developing in-house apps that aren't being released to the world at large doesn't require Apple's review or permission. Only apps destined for the App Store are reviewed for compliance with Apple's guidelines.

That aside, it's not much of a surprise that companies will give Win8 tablets a serious look. Windows remains dominant in large part because it is historically dominant. Companies are loathe to port their own applications or find (and purchase) alternatives for third-party applications unless they see a significant business return on it. It's largely inertia, and even though the percentage of desktops running some form of Windows continues to drop (10 years ago, it was about 90%, now it's approaching 70%), it's still a massive number compared to other options, and commercial developers will focus first and foremost on where the money is.

[newheart]

IT guys at home use Linux

And since the Mac went BSD, it doesn't really matter that much what kind of box they use. And I know plenty of "tinkerers" who have Linux on their MacBook Pro.

[newheart]

Please tell us you are kidding. Looks like Windows 8 is Microsoft's way of helping Obama drive the last nail into the coffin of American business.

Of course I'm kidding. I'm an unapologetic Mac Fanboy. But having lived on both platforms since the 80's I definitely don't share your paranoia about Microsoft trying to help Obama ruin American business. MS is all about business. And when they screw things up, I'm pretty sure it is inadvertent and not part of some grand liberal conspiracy.

[kevkrom]

I gotta agree. The business world is Microsoft’s “firewall”, as it were, to maintaining their market dominance. They need to remain the system of choice for corporate buyers, and they’re not going to do anything — intentionally - to mess that base up.

[FreeAtlanta]

I do, and the Windows development is much easier, quicker and thus cheaper for businesses.

[BfloGuy]

Developing in-house apps that aren't being released to the world at large doesn't require Apple's review or permission.

As Johnny Carson used to say, "I did not know that." I do think, though, that Microsoft's providing [and making a lot of money from] developer tools has been the difference in their market share.