Google and Microsoft are both best known for their software, but both have decided the only way to challenge Apple in the tablet market is to get into the relatively difficult business of making hardware.
The fact that, in spite of major differences in the ways they do business, both Google and Microsoft have arrived at the same potentially risky strategy is a clear signal of Apple’s dominance.
Microsoft, as ever, wants to sell Windows software licences, but has apparently concluded that its usual PC manufacturing partners aren’t up to the job of creating a market for Windows 8/RT tablets.
It risked alienating them last week when it introduced Surface, its most important hardware product ever. Unlike the Xbox or Zune, the success of Windows on tablets is vital to the future of Microsoft’s core software licensing business, so it must have calculated that the risk posed by mounting its challenge to the iPad with lacklustre products was greater.
Some of the numbers that went into that calculation must have come from Google’s fairly ineffectual adventures in the tablet market. Many of the same manufacturers who will eventually build Windows tablets have offered several Android versions already
Unlike in the smartphone market, where Android quickly gained a foothold and then took over from iOS as the most popular operating system, Google has so far failed to overturn the iPad’s dominance.
Its aim, as ever, is to capture more eyeballs. It gives away Android to smartphone and tablet manufacturers so they can send traffic to its search engine and it can serve up advertising.
But according to a study of web traffic last month, the iPad accounts for 95 per cent of booming web traffic from tablets. Although IDC says that Android accounted for 38.7 per cent of tablet sales last year, the devices are apparently not used, at least online, which makes them almost useless to Google.
The firm has, of course, released smartphones under its “Nexus” own brand before, to showcase and test new features. Android for smartphones was already a success by then, however, with manufacturers such as Samsung making great strides against the iPhone.
But today is different. By introducing an own-brand iPad challenger, Google is not so much showcasing or testing new features, but attempting to relaunch Android as a tablet operating system. Manufacturers who have invested heavily already will be watching closely.
