Microsoft is that company which for a long period of time provided the only viable operating system for your computer. Even now, when Linux or Leopard have gained some ground, the fact remains true that the vast majority of computer users are now reading this article on a machine powered by Microsoft’s Windows operating system. As soon as smartphones became more popular, Microsoft expanded to them as well, and started offering Windows Mobile. Now that tablets are actually starting to sell and are slowly becoming more popular (partly due to Apple’s iPad), Microsoft wants to make some money out of that as well, and will most likely attempt to dominate the market with its OS designed specifically for that type of device.
CEO Steve Ballmer made that crystal clear with his declaration at this week’s Annual presentation to analysts, taking place in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft’s CEO announced that the company will be “coming full guns” at the mobile tech market. He also mentioned “We’re going to sell like crazy; we’re going to market like crazy.” So what’s triggering this sudden craziness that Microsoft is experiencing when it comes to the success of tablets?
One tablet in particular, it seems, namely Apple’s iPad which has been selling “like crazy” ever since it was released on the market earlier this year. So now Microsoft is actually attempting to tackle the iPad in the near future. While the Redmond based company seems pretty confident in its plan, it’s also true that Apple now has a great advantage on the tablet market. The iPad isn’t exactly hard to reproduce or dethrone if manufacturers get it right and make the right partnerships with software companies. But the main advantage of the iPad 
is that it’s already on the market, successful from the start and has sold 3 million units by now. Microsoft can’t brag with the same achievement as it has recorded almost no success so far in the tablet arena. Though it has announced that along with its partners (in charge of the hardware and device design) it will try to produce a line of devices that should rival the iPad, we can look back and compare the situation with the release and success of the first iPhone some years ago. Most phone manufacturers back then were boasting with releasing an iPhone ‘killer’ and while many devices were released on the market that featured touch screens, features that were similar to the iPhone’s and the Android operating system, years later, despite the glitches and problems the iPhone 4 is causing, most users still own an older iPhone or seriously consider upgrading to the latest phone Apple has released on the market.
“We’ve had Windows 7 on tablets and slate machines now for a number of years and Apple has done an interesting job of putting together a synthesis and putting a product out, and in which they’ve – - they sold certainly more than I’d like them to sell, let me just be clear about that” Ballmer continued to say. So while Microsoft hasn’t yet declared what their future devices, meant to be iPad rivals, will look like, it’s pretty safe to assume that the company’s main inspiration will be Apple’s innovative product. The number one goal of the company is to somehow make itself known in the tablet department. Whether Microsoft will manage to do that with some serious competition already popular and on the market, we’ve yet to find out.
