Apple hath given tablet one face, and now Windows wants to make itself another.
“Attack” is the unspoken slogan of today’s battle of gadgets. Last week, we saw Toshiba insulted iPad and then got a barrage of scornful reviews. This week, the slogan is re-articulated with Windows arrogantly sneers at iPad and boasts the superiority of its Windows 7 slates.
Windows lately spread to its partners a curious PowerPoint deck. With this deck, the empire hopes to be able to help its vassals selling the slates against the iPad in 2011. ZDNet republished 10 of the slides, all of them highlighting key differences that make Windows better than the senile.
Focuses mainly on the enterprise, Windows affixes checks for things like getting work done offline, supporting Microsoft Office and its data synchronization tools, and working with existing lines of business application. These superiorities are still added with the support for peripherals, security protocols, Adobe’s Flash (Toshiba had already claimed this) and Microsoft’s Sulverlight.
Windows’s accusation for iPad is rather hard to deny though: iPad is a consumption device that is too harsh for the existing enterprise security or application standards – most of us would agree with this sensitive charge. On the other side, Windows 7 slate is very friendly with off- and online data use, has a design for both creating content and consuming, and support for peripherals.
This bulk of advantages is far from finished: Windows 7 slate should be easy in handling pen and writing technology, speech recognition, touch support, plus natural UI and video technologies.
Apparently, Microsoft is in the queue line of those who worked hard to deprive Apple off its iPadistas. But, with Xoom being doubted, and Toshiba being underestimated, Microsoft won’t step further from that line either. However, this should not be taken off for granted: we don’t know what is going inside Steve Ballmer’s team.
Failure is close to the line though if we measure the effort with speed only. CES 2010 saw Mr. Ballmer paid attention to a bunch of Windows 7 slate concepts. That year, consumers found only HP’s slate 500 devices on their hands. What’s more, CES 2011 does not witness any slate, but myriad of devices designed to showcase Windows’ next ARM capabilities instead.
The most possible candidate for distracting iPadistas, Windows Phone OS, until now only left us speculating whether it is going to strengthen Window’s tablet form factor. However, if it were indeed seeing the light, of course it will only be a temporary strategy to fill a one year gap period until 2012, when Windows 8 machines are expected to finally hit the market.
But for today and perhaps the next many months, we still shall see the iPad as a sole tablet. And sure enough we will be watching more attacks.***
Image: ZDNet
