This week, according to barrons.com, Steve Milunovich of UBS Securities made the statement that “iOS is the new Windows”, referring to the dominant PC based operating system. We all know the PC market is under a lot of pressure right now and struggling, but the tablet marketing is growing.
“Apple is gaining as the ratio of total notebooks to iPads plus MacBooks peaked at over 30x in 2006 and is now just 1.6x. Not only could iPad maintain half the tablet market, but MacBooks might steal a significant number of Windows PC users.”
While the tablet market is very diverse now and offers a lot of competition for the iPad, more often than not people will choose the iPad, according to Milunovich. His reasoning is “user confusion” will result in people choosing the Apple brand, its simple line up of tablets, and great retail support.
Recently Microsoft launched their own line of tablets, as well as Windows 8, which is included on other tablets aside from their own Surface models. Yet Apple is the early mover, technically launching the tablet market itself, and Microsoft’s Milunovich feels Microsoft is too late to the party. Still, some analysts think that the Surface tablets will have a small niche in the business world, due to many companies running Windows based networks.
You could say that as we move further into the future tablets will be considered the modern day PC, being able to perform the same tasks as a laptop. The iOS operating system is so familiar and easy to use on the iPad, and even on its sister the iPhone.
It’s easy to call iOS the “new Windows”. In my opinion there is only one flaw with that statement, and it’s the fact that iOS is only available on Apple products, whereas Windows was a universal operating system, excluding Apple computers of course. Will we one day see iOS running on other brands? I don’t think that will happen given Apple’s brand image. They are usually a company that doesn’t endorse other companies’ products.
Source:barrons.com
