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Report: Microsoft worldwide tablet operating-system share at 5 percent

By | July 21, 2011, 7:25am PDT

I hear from quite a few readers that they think Windows 7 tablets are the cat’s meow. But it looks like more people than not agree with me that those tablets are just not what the majority find palatable.

According to numbers released on June 21 by Boston-based research firm Strategy Analytics, global tablet shipments reached 15 million units in the second quarter of 2011. Apple maintained first position with 61 percent share — down substantially from 94 percent a year earlier. Tablets running Android, meanwhile, zoomed to 30 percent operating system share from 3 percent in the year-ago second quarter.

What about Microsoft, which has a number of partners selling Windows 7-based tablets, aimed primarily at the business market? Windows 7 tablet share grew from zero percent in Q2 2010, to 4.6 percent in Q2 2011, Strategy Analytics said. Windows 7 tablets were slightly more popular than the RIM Playbook running QNX, which also grew from zero percent share in Q2 last year, to 3.3 percent this year.

Here are Strategy Analytics’ qualifiers for these numbers: “Shipments refer to sell-in. Numbers are rounded. The definition of tablet does not include e-book readers.” (I believe this means these are shipments to the channel, not end users. If I hear otherwise, I’ll update.)

Microsoft’s “real” iPad competitor is going to be Windows 8, which isn’t expected to come to market until mid-2012, at best. But that isn’t stopping a number of Microsoft OEMs from continuing to release Windows 7 tablets in the interim. Microsoft has backed away from touting slates running the Windows Embedded Compact operating system as potential iPad competitors.

Microsoft has encouraged its partners selling Windows 7 tablets against the iPad to emphasize Windows 7 tablets’ security, compliance abilities, enterprise-networking and line-of-business application compatibility.

Microsoft officials are adamant that tablets are basically PCs — a positioning statement with which I (and a number of other Microsoft watchers, customers and partners) don’t agree. Because of this position, Microsoft is preventing its OEMs from putting the Windows Phone OS on tablets, and is licensing to tablet makers the full Windows operating system instead.

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Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.

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RE: Report: Microsoft worldwide tablet operating-system share at 5 percent
flypig0089 30th Oct
The article has really peaks my interest. I am going to bookmark your web site and hold checking for brand new information.
Holiday Notice
Having used tablets exclusively for nearly 7 years, I agree wholeheartedly with Microosft's strategy (the pen is mightier than the thumb). I can just hear what the pundits would have said if Microsoft would had made their phone OS available for tablets: "Microsoft adopts a weak "me-two" strategy with Windows Phone for tablets...the eco-system for Windows Phone tablest is less than 1-10th of the iPad..." and on and on. Google Android has the weak me-too stuff covered if you ask me.
@cliffbrooks@... I completely agree with you. I wish Mary Jo (and a number of other Microsoft watchers, customers and partners) would take a more forward looking approach. Windows Phone is an awsome OS but to compete with the iPad, Microsoft must find a way to offer up a better value other than "it looks different".
@rwalrond
And you claim that Win7 with enlarged buttons is THE answer to the iPad?

lol lol lol
@rwalrond No one has ever denied that there's a market for tablet PCs running full versions of Windows. The problem is that it's miniscule. The success of the iPad, and to a much lesser degree the Android tablets, shows that there's a much larger market for lighter weight devices with less bulk, simpler interfaces, and low-cost, if lower function, apps that can be quickly and easily added.

While it would be an oversimplification to say that Microsoft is beating a dead horse, it's clearly abusing an underweight pony.
@rwalrond
There's a number of my colleagues and I, who haven't gotten a tablet because we want a full featured OS, not a giant iPhone. The only tablet I've considered is the Asus EEESlate because I know I can use most of my PC software on it. I just don't find value in a $500-600 device just to use it as an e-reader and play Flight Control.
@matthew_maurice, I'm sorry but there must be some room for a Windows tablet optimized for the hardware of today. Considering how many PC's are sold each year, Microsoft would only have to convince %10-%15 of those users to buy a Windows 8 Tablet to become a major player in the current tablet space. Doesn't seem like that difficult of a task.
@przemoli, W8 is not an Answer to the iPad. Microsoft Windows PC sells 10x as many units as Apple sells iPads. Microsoft needs to provide an OS for the next generation of Windows PC's. The user will decide the form factor they want. It's easy to laugh now, but in reality, Microsoft is smart for attacking this market from their possition of strength and that is that 90% of computer users use Windows.
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I agree too.
WilErz 22nd Jul
@ rwalrond

Passing any sort of judgment on Microsoft's tablet strategy at this point in time doesn't make sense at all. The market for x86-based tablets is limited for several reasons, including in particular power requirements, size and price. Both iOS and Android run on low-power and relatively inexpensive Arm hardware today, but Windows won't do that until Windows 8 ships next year.

With Windows 8 on the way, anyone interested in a Windows tablet who doesn't need it immediately will be waiting. In the interim, an iPad or Android tablet may even make more sense as a stop-gap device. In smartphones as well, since the Nokia/Microsoft announcement, both Nokia and Microsoft have been sort of put on hold as well. Why would anyone buy a current Symbian-based Nokia or a non-Nokia Windows Phone when the Nokia Windows Phones are on the way?

I'm one of perhaps many who are waiting for Windows 8 and Nokia Windows Phones before deciding on a tablet and my next smartphone, respectively. After Nokia Windows Phones and Windows 8 have out for a few months, we can talk about whether or not Microsoft's strategy is working. Right now, it's just pointless and speculative babble.
@matthew_maurice "No one has ever denied that there's a market for tablet PCs running full versions of Windows."

More importantly, no one has ever shown that there is a market!
@His_Shadow According to the title of this blog post, MS has 5% of the market. Oddly enough, that's what OS X has had for the last decade.

Let me guess though, Apple's 5% is much better than MS's 5%, right?
@His_Shadow

At 5% there must be something. 5% is bigger then 0%
@His_Shadow

Try looking at Asia and you'll see the market. There are no native tablet systems for Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Thai languages - around 50% of the global market. Telling a Chinese that in order to enter text in Chinese they need to learn English is really, really dumb.
@cliffbrooks@...

Well, I don't particularly like the current crop of Win7 tablets that I have had the chance to play with. The hardware is just a LITTLE too big and power hungry, and Win7 just isn't touch friendly enough.

But at the same time I really miss having a full-power OS and full-power Apps on my iPad. And I love Metro on my phone.

The thing about the Windows-On-A-Tablet strategy is that it is a somewhat longer play than most people see. If they can get Win8 on gen one iPad style hardware (size, weight, heat, battery) they will probably have my dollar. But that is just gen one.

Fast forward 5 years or so, and the size difference needed between an iOS device and a WinXX device won't matter because both will be very thin and very light. I won't care at all if it costs me an extra half-ounce to run Windows. But iOS still won't have full-desktop functionality and WinXX will. Unless they build it into iOS but that removes the differentiation.

I think the time period where stripped down OSes were mandatory for good tablets is already drawing to a close and from there it is simply an argument of simplicity vs functionality. My hope is that in 5 years both iOS tablets AND Windows tablets are popular. (Android too!)
@SlithyTove
Honestly, I like the Asus EEESlate I played with at the Microsoft Store. It it slightly larger and it is a couple of hundred more expensive but it's pretty powerful and still has really good battery life. Full functionality and the power of a fairly good laptop, I would mind paying good money for.
@cliffbrooks@...
If the strategy is low volume niche business tablet with 5% mobile share, then fine - this shows that strategy they've been persuing for nearly the last decade has worked! I doubt they are happy with this. The average person wants a full featured PC/laptop and an easy to use, low power, quick, finger touch consumption type device.
A windows 8 metro tablet on ARM cannot run windows legacy apps. It will be just like windows phone 7 on a tablet and will suffer a similar fate as the phone. If you are running an x86 tablet then you can theoretically get the best of both UIs, but it will still have to be big bulky, hot with short battery life and require antivirus. These will be no more popular than the current winxp/7 tablets.
@willyampz
@willyampz
I'm not sure what Microsoft's strategy has been...what I'm saying is that it's time for them to change their strategy. They have the OS, and the hardware (even better options with 8), they just need to execute. Nitch it if you will. But nitching doesn't mean 5% of the marketplace in my estimation. The nitches I'd go after include students (OneNote can be used to take handwritten notes, search on handwriting, record lectures, store EVERYTHING, etc.), office workers (meetings, developer diaries, etc.), artists, and writers. Each niche, by itself, is significant. Imagine if they went after all of them?

Having used tablets to their fullest, I've seen the power of the pen and the power of options. I nearly always use a keyboard for email, unless I feel like handwriting something special or doodling a cheery greeting, in which case, I swivel into slate mode, pop the pen from its silo, and go to town. When I'm, done, I swivel back, redock the pen, and use the keyboard until it's again time to put the pen to work.

I most often use the pen to design things and take notes (okay, and doodle). In addition, when writing fiction I often use the pen, letting the excellent handwriting recognition engine convert it to text in Word.

That, in my estimation, is powerful.
@cliffbrooks@...

The pen is mightier than the thumb. I like that.

I too have been using tablets since 2003 and I just can't understand why anyone would want an iPad or Android tablet. What? No OneNote? No Photoshop? No Mindmanager? OK, it has a browser and can browse the Internet. Well, the bits of the Internet without Flash.

They are NOT tablets. They're READERS. The term 'tablet' came from 'writing tablet'. I don't care what Steve Jobs' marketing department tells me, if I can't write on the thing then it's functionally useless.
@cliffbrooks@... It's interesting to note that in the comments here the people who slag off Windows tablets are people who've never used them while those of us who use them universally like them. The problem is NOT Windows. It's just that Intel can't get their act together to make suitable low-power consumption hardware.
The bigger problem is marketing, or rather, Windows 7 tablets have none. To be honest, if I didn't come to ZDNet, I wouldn't even know they existed.
@kenosha7777: ... 'Strategy Analytics' did not know a thing about actual tablet sales so they waited for Apple to tell sales figures before releasing their "research".

As another factor, you might wonder how they came up with 4.5 million Android tablet sales. This seems to be totally made up, guess-at-best number that comes from nowhere. Even you add all Xooms to GalaxyTabs and smaller players together, you can not get any close to that figure.
@Aerowind

Microsoft and partners already marketed the hell out of tablets running Windows, for over a decade. But consumers never cared. What will be the big difference now?
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@Aerowind
With no real marketing push and not much of a product, 5% of tablet sales are Windows?? That shows that there is a market for a tablet with a full featured OS.

I would have guessed the Windows number as much smaller.
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what a load of bs
bannedfromzdnetagainandagain Updated - 21st Jul
@Aerowind
this "report" is hogwash. this "research firm" is pulling numbers out of their a**. truth is we don't know any numbers beside the ipads sold. apple is the only company reporting their numbers (beside some channel fill nonsense from rimm and samsung). no hard data available for windows or android tablets. just a ridiculous "report" from a no-name company desperate for some attention. these days anyone can come up with some bs and the blogosphere is reporting it without any questions ask.

p.s. my "report" with my (random) numbers is due soon. it'll cost you $1790.
@bannedfromzdnetagainandagain

as they go right past your head when they're pullling them out happy
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@Aerowind
I can't see them putting any real effort behind Win7 on a tablet, just to turn around and show off 8 a few months down the road.

WP7 on a tablet, maybe, but I think they're really interested in Windows 8 at this point, Windows 7 just for those that have need of a full feature OS on a tablet.
I still don't get why a tablet is not a personal computer. Sure, its not a desktop, I get that. But why isn't it a PC? It's definitely not a phone.
@moorster

More and more independent reporting institutions are classifying tablets as personal computers. Classifying tablets as non-PC devices is now a minority opinion.
@moorster
Its PC as in Personal Computer.
But it neeeeeeds separate UI thatn desktop or notebook.

So here you have MS partners selling UI for desktop on form factor that need a bit different things.

And by UI I mean all UI presented to the user, from OS, WebBrowser, to every and each app that will be available.
@moorster
Until someone can get me to understand why a tablet shouldnt have a full OS than I will agree with you.
@timotim Define a full OS... when you say that you mean be menu driven? or you mean run the same applications as a desktop OS. Tablet OS's are operating systems, they just are distinct from the desktop OS they were derived from.

Why shouldn't it have a "full" OS? Because a lot of the desktop OS is designed to run by mouse, or keyboard, a tablet OS needs to be touch based, people who don't understand how significantly different interacting with a touch screen is than interacting with a mouse won't get it.

I'm not yet convinced I want a gestures on my laptop, but I know I don't want a mouse with a tablet (or a phone).
@wzrobin

By that I mean an OS that has no limits to what it can do. Windows accepts and reads every file format and plug-in one can throw at it. Tablets like the iPad do not. They don't have universal ports, they cant read many files, they don't play Flash or Silverlight, they have limited input methods, they work on very limited resolutions and form factors...when I say full OS i mean it has the general CAPABILITY of what we see on a desktop PC. today.
@moorster
use a tablet for a while and you'll understand. It shouldn't be used as a desktop computer. Would you call an ipod touch a personal computer? I doubt it.
@moorster

iPads and other tablets like the iPad are modern personal computers (PC). Emphasis on the word modern.

Or a new form of computing. Emphasis on the word form.
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@ dave95

Tablets are PCs with a new input model, just like Wimp PCs were in the 80s/90s. However, unlike Wimp, which made the command line obsolete for most users, multi-touch UI isn't a general replacement for Wimp. It can replace small notebooks/netbooks, but is clumsy on desktops and even for more demanding tasks on notebooks (where a keyboard is still essential).
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The MS Tablet IS a PC
rjohn05 Updated - 21st Jul
I don't get why MJ and others do not get that a tablet with a full blow OS like Windows is so much more than a Android Honeycomb tablet or iPad. Among other things, it can run full desktop applications and should not be considered in the same category as iPad and honeycomb regardless of how much overlap there will be once Windows 8 is released.
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More is the problem.
matthew_maurice 21st Jul
@rjohn05 A full-blow OS on a highly mobile platform certainly has its merits, but "more" isn't necessarily better. The market has clearly spoken, smaller lightweight devices with simple, intuitive interfaces and lots of small applications that are easy and cheap, if not free, are what people want. More importantly they're willing to pay more for it, at least when it comes wrapped in a stylish package. Microsoft is stubbornly continuing to push a product that's never appealed to the mass-market, and this is what's making people wonder what they're thinking in Redmond.
@matthew_maurice
Have you seen the Windows 8 UI. It is gorgeous. Having a full OS with beutiful touch friendly UI is exactly what the doctor ordered. I hear people mention "Windows is bloated" but in reality if you use retail windows 7 with SSDs, you would realize that it is actually fast to boot and blazing in terms of performance.
With windows 8, they seem to be improving perf and boot up times further while at the same time allowing a beutiful UI and arm support. I think this is an amazing strategy for tablets and laptops.
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The UI is only half the battle.
matthew_maurice 21st Jul
@CommenterLive Beyond that there's the form factor and price point. Those are both areas in which it's proving very hard to compete with Apple. In addition, as far as UI I'd add that WP7 is considered to have a beautiful one, but look how that's worked out for Microsoft.

I'm not saying a Windows 8 tablet won't be competitive or attractive in the market, but Microsoft's problem is that by whatever time in 2012 we see them the iPad and Android tablets may have an as insurmountable lead in the space as the iPhone and Android devices have in smartphones.
@matthew_maurice
You keep saying this while confusing whats going on now with Windows 8. MS sees a tablet as it should be...a FULL MOBILE PC. Thats exactly what they are. You say the market wants simple, lightweight, small and intuitive interfaces...theirs no reason why you cant have all that in a full OS. Windows 8 looks to be all of that...the fact that it also has full capability doesnt mean some how its not a tablet.

How is MS still being stubborn if they provide a touch first UI and design their next OS to run on ARM?
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5% disagree with you.
William Pharaoh 21st Jul
@matthew_maurice
and that's just with Windows7

What happens when 8 gets here. Oh, and the OEM's decided to make the tablets and put Win7 on them, not MS.
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Contributr
Problems (for me) with Win 7 tablets
Mary Jo Foley 21st Jul
Hi. As I've noted before, to me, Win 7 tablets aren't attractive because they are pricey, not optimized for touch, bulky and have poor battery life. These factors outweigh -- again, for me -- the ability to run full desktop apps. I run very few full desktop apps on my Win 7 PC, either (beyond Office)... MJ
@Mary Jo Foley
I agree with you, thats why they haven't been too successful, BUT 5% of marketshare is actually a great sign for Windows 8. Like you said, thus far they have really only sold to business users and those needing a full OS...what do you think will happen once MS actually provides a full OS with a design that is touch first, has sleek hardware, has great battery life and is around the price points that netbook start at?

You say you run very few full desktop apps in Windows...it makes even more sense for you to want a Windows 8 ARM tablet. Not only will you have a lightweight device with good battery life but you even get to keep your Office 2010 as your main full desktop app. However, its the full OS that will make it better...being able to plug-in a thumb drive, playing any and all files and formats, having more than one screen open at a time, not being limited while on the web Flash, Silverlight etc. Anyway you slice it a Windows 8 tablet allows way more freedom while also providing all the benefits of those other limited tablets.
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Who placed Windows7 on these tablets
William Pharaoh 21st Jul
@Mary Jo Foley
The OEM's or MS?

So I guess the OEM felt there was some sort of need for them, and 5% agreed.
Having used a Windows 7 tablet everyday for the last 8 months, I can tell you that other than battery life, it completely blows the iPad away when it comes to being productive in an office setting. I take my notes in Onenote, that synchs instantly to my work PC back at my desk, my WP7 in my pocket and my home computer. Not to mention having access to outlook and sharepoint in meetings have given me an edge when having to respond to unexpected questions in a meeting.

I also find the browsing experience to be far supperior on a Windows Tablet. I can quickly jump backwards and forwards by just swiping. Whenever I use an iPad I find myself trying to quickly swipe to the left to go back a page(I wonder, is that an option in iOS now?)

My kids also love my Windows Tablet, because they get to use the pen and draw and erase on the tablet, which gives them much more control than using their fingers to finger paint.

I'm glad Microsoft hasn't got caught up in then "Lets create an iPad clone" race and is thinking far beyond the current use case of an iPad. After all, isn't this what we should expect from the world wide OS leaders and experts?
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Yeah, but are their licensees as glad?
matthew_maurice 21st Jul
@rwalrond The OEMs have to look at the iPad sales numbers and gross margins with extreme anguish. Microsoft isn't giving them anything to compete with, and with the clearly second-rate Android OS at 30% of the tablet market they have to be thinking that anything would be better than Windows in the table space. Win8 may very well change that, but it's 6+ months away, and that's one more holiday season that they won't have an iPad answer.
@matthew_maurice OEMs are in panic mode because they see the kind of money that Apple is bringing in with their iOS eco-system. Microsoft is not the only company slow to deliver a solution for the OEM, I would argue that Intel is more at fault for not providing hardware that could give us iPad size devices runing x86. Like I said, I use Windows 7 on a tablet everyday, and it doesn't get the credit it deserves.
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Absolutely.
WilErz 22nd Jul
@ rwalrond

Intel dropped the ball and Microsoft's biggest mistake was not having a backup (e.g. an Arm port), like they did with NT on Mips, Alpha and PowerPC in the 90s. They probably assumed Intel would win yet again (and you can't really blame them, given Intel's record), but it's increasingly looking like this round will go to Arm. Nokia's woes also owe something to Intel's failure (since MeeGo was being developed in partnership with Intel).
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Windows 8 hardware requirements
ernonewman@... 21st Jul
While I wouldn't mind picking up a Windows 7 slate right now, what puts me off is that none of the current ones on market seems to have the minimum required resolution to run the new Windows 8 interface in it's full glory. If that changed then I would be tempted to pick one up now.
Windows 8 will even decrease their tablet market share cause honestly who wants that legacy crap Windows eating your batter life and one that needs Antivirus? iPad is and will continue to rule
The article has really peaks my interest. I am going to bookmark your web site and hold checking for brand new information.
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