As Microsoft itself told us a few weeks ago at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013, some of its products haven't exactly been the easiest sell to all sectors of the market. We've also heard from IT professionals such as iSupportU CEO/founder Shaun Oshman that businesses themselves have been rather disinterested in keeping up with Microsoft as of late, going instead to Google and Apple for office-wide integration.
We've also reported on the fact that, problems like these or no, Microsoft has recently been rolling out its Surface Pro and Surface RT tablets to more international markets. So the question now must be asked: Do any of these other markets have businesses that really care about Microsoft's Surface line?
"Microsoft spent two decades trying to build tablets for business and failed," ZDNet says in an analysis published on Tuesday, May 21. "It then had to suffer the agony of seeing Apple come along and swallow the market in one gulp, pretty much breaking the PC market as it did so."
ZDNet continues that the reason Apple found such success with its tablets is precisely because it didn't focus too much on creating the devices for enterprises. By making iPad's for consumers, the devices became so user-friendly and popular that enterprises -- on their own -- came around and began integrating them into their quotidian operations.
On the other hand, as ZDNet further points out, whereas Microsoft's Surface Pro or Surface RT might be a "perfect" tablet for IT folks (with Microsoft Office, a keyboard and Windows, the Surface tablets are basically just mobile PC's), their department isn't exactly making the buying decisions for the enterprises that they're working for anymore.
"Thanks to the consumerisation of IT, the choice of what device to use in the office may well be made by the end user, and will increasingly be so in future," ZDNet says. "And most end users, when it comes to tablets, have been buying iPads."
The real issue, too, is that now that we have a "BYOD generation," one made up of members who have their own tablets -- if at all -- that they're bringing into the office (more frequently being iPad's or perhaps Google devices such as the Nexus 7, say), what market really exists for tablets in the enterprise realm, anyway?
Essentially, if everyone is already bringing their own devices into the office, why the heck would the offices need to worry about wasting money or time on Surface Pro or Surface RT tablets (or any new tablets at all, for that matter)?
"What's unclear ... is how big the market for Windows tablets in business will be from now on, especially considering how may iPads are already in place, and whether there is much pent-up demand that hasn't been satisfied by Apple already," ZDNet says.
What do you think? Does Microsoft still have a fighting chance going at the enterprise community internationally with its Surface Pro and Surface RT? Sound off in our comments below!
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