Forrester Says Windows 8 Tablets Are Dead-on-Arrival

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I place little to no value in the Forrester group. They seem to have a bit of an axe to grind against MS based on some of their past studies.

That said, I just don't see the tablet market as anything other than toys/consumption devices. I know I can't use a tablet for useful work. A large portion of the software I need to do my job just simply won't work/doesn't exist on a tablet and on-screen keyboards are just impractical for my work. Trying to go over complicated spreadsheets just sucks on a tiny tablet screen. To me, tablets are just large smart phones.

I was excited over the Transformer Prime, and I think it's a pretty cool device, but odds are I'm still not going to buy one. At the price point they're asking, I might as well just pick up a $500 i5 laptop to replace my ailing one at home. The laptop will do everything the tablet would for my 'play-time' needs (streaming video, internet browsing, light gaming, etc) and be able to do more on top of that and it also has the added benefit of actually being useful for my actual work. I just can't see the value in spending $500+ for a consumption device, especially now that B&N and Amazon have their offerings at $200-250.

I just don't see tablets being anything other than fancy toys or as very simple, light work devices and I suspect their sales are eventually going to level off as that market saturates. I do not see them as a desktop/laptop killer. I'm reasonably certain they'll always be around from this point on, but I highly doubt they're going to get to stay at their current price point, at least relative to the low cost laptops. MS is probably just doing this with win8 to make certain they at least have a presence in the market but my impression is that the whole win8 tablet project is just a side project/curiosity in the win8 plan for the laptop-desktop market, kind of like the win7 starter edition was/is.
 
Wasn't some Apple dude just complaining about their stock being undervalued because of "damaging media?" Win8 isn't even out yet let alone Win8 tablets and they're already publishing damaging media.
 
The real hit is the integration with other Windows products, Introduce Tablets to corporate enviroment with all kind of thing that are need it like security domain enrole etc. For home user XBLA, easy media share and play run same apps on phones tablets and xbox like apple work as remote or secondary screen or even mobile console and one more thing that shoud be great run on existing Android Tablets
even in unssoported way this would be a hit.
 
[citation][nom]psychobob[/nom]1)How are you going to play Starcraft or any other serious game on a tablet? Are you going buy a keyboard and mouse for it, and essentially turn it into a 10 inch PC?2)Do you really think it's going to cost under $500? The cheapest Win 7 slate I could find is the Gigabyte S1080, at around $650. And if you want the kind of hardware to play games like Starcraft, well that will probably run you around 1k if such a think will ever exist.[/citation]Maybe he means Starcraft 1, not Starcraft 2? Plenty of weak systems can run Starcraft 1.
 
[citation][nom]gm0n3y[/nom]I still think that tablets are a fad. I can't see why you'd want a tablet when you already have a smartphone and a laptop.[/citation]

I don't see how anyone would want to lug around a smartphone and laptop when they have a tablet.
 
I totally love my Android phone but when it comes to tablets, I've been waiting for a Windows one. If I love my Windows PC and all the apps on it (including Dreamweaver, Photoshop etc.) then I crave a tablet that I can take with me which simulates my PC wherever I am.
 
[citation][nom]a-dude[/nom]I totally love my Android phone but when it comes to tablets, I've been waiting for a Windows one. If I love my Windows PC and all the apps on it (including Dreamweaver, Photoshop etc.) then I crave a tablet that I can take with me which simulates my PC wherever I am.[/citation]

You probably also crave gonorrhea, Obama speeches, and watching Indianapolis Colt games.
 
The thing is, they're doing some great things behind the scenes, making it faster and less resource intense, but that metro UI makes it very hard to use.
 
[citation][nom]TEAMSWITCHER[/nom]Being in it for the "long haul" is code speak for, "We don't know if we'll ever be relevant in this segment." I work for a software company that has already decided to back the iPad. And we were a Microsoft Only shop before this. Android is under investigation and Windows 8 Tablets are not even in our five year plan. We simply have no faith that Microsoft will sell enough devices to make us care. I'm sure other companies are doing the same. Microsoft's Windows 8 is too little....to late.[/citation]
And what happens when the batteries need replacing in all those ipads? You have to send the entire device back to apple and get a new one - for an additional fee, of course. Tablet hardware is not going to be upgraded, entire devices are just replaced. There is no infrastructure investment with tablets so switching from brand x to brand y won't be difficult or expensive because like I said, the hardware is going to get outdated and need replaced anyway. Next upgrade cycle, companies will easily switch to windows because people will already know how to use them, since most offices use windows software already. What you decided to use now is irrelevant. Yes, by all means buy ipads and enjoy them. What I am saying is that in 3 years when those shiny ipads are long in the tooth, microsoft will be there to woo you away with a complete windows experience in tablet form. Active directory? Supported. All your mapped network drives? Supported. If you work for a business that knows or cares at all about security and/or company IT infrastructure they WILL care about windows tablets. No, no... not now young one. Easy there... not now, I know. Don't be scared. It is hard to imagine yourself as an adult when you are still a child, but the adults around you can see it much better.
 
I have wrestled with the desire to purchase a tablet or a smart phone but I keep coming to the conclusion that the cost out weighs the benefits of the technology. I would like a Kindle Fire. I have a Kindle E Reader and it has been awesome. The savings I have made buying e books has been significant. The Fire is desirable because it ties in so well with digital product sold by Amazon. I genuinely believe that the tablet and or the smart phone will not come close to replacing the PC or the laptop. The tablet is for consumption. Whenever people actually need to produce they will turn to the PC.
 
I personally couldnt care less about the Tablet angle. However I am keenly interested in the Windows 8 OS itself. I put the developer preview on my Eee PC and it surprised the hell out of me with how much faster it runs everything than Windows 7. Hopefully the end product will be as well optimized.
 
Yeah, thats what I thought about the xbox 360's, but apparently based on today's article on toms, I was wrong. I know I'm planning on getting a windows 8 tablet (to many reasons to list), planning on selling my ipad to put a down payment on one. So I guess only time will tell now won't it.
 


yea people were saying the same thing about netbooks
 
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