A Windows 8 Metro screen showing Microsoft Office 15 applications. Having a full version of Office on a tablet may be Microsoft's trump card.
With Windows 8 now on a clearer path to release, expect the big device makers to try to crash the raucous Apple party with Microsoft leading the way.
Whither Android? So far, the only Android tablet supplier to come close to busting up the nonstop iPad festivities is Amazon.
That's high irony. Amazon is hardly a hardware company. And certainly a far cry from the likes of Motorola, Dell, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, and Asus. All of which have failed to come up with a blockbuster Android alternative to the iPad. (Samsung and Asus have had limited success, but nothing that rivals the iPad in numbers.)
Here's what Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore said this week in a research note below a heading entitled "No iPad-killer in this bunch."
Analyst unsure about Android: "In the past 12 months, the tablet market has been flooded with a slew of Android-based devices; none of which have matched the success of the iPad. From a hardware perspective, it is clear most offerings are 'me-too' with little to no differentiation."
Whitmore continues. "We continue to believe these Android-based 'iPad-killers' will fall short. Many [device makers] seem to agree and are shifting their efforts on Win8 based tablets, which should ship in 2H12 (second half 2012)."
And this week that shift gained some velocity when Microsoft provided more clarity about Windows 8 on ARM in fairly exacting detail.
Waiting for a Windows 8 tablet: Personally, I'm anxious to get my hands on a Win 8 tablet from, say, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sony, or Samsung. Why? My experience (going on two months now) with the Motorola-Verizon XyBoard 10.1 (aka, Xoom 2) running Android 3.2 has been less than satisfying (though I do love Motorola's thin, lightweight design). In short, Android on my XyBoard doesn't have the reliability of iOS on my iPad 2.
