Microsoft is rumored to take on Apple and its grasp on the tablet market by introducing a Windows tablet device at a media event in Los Angeles on Monday.
By entering a highly competitive world of tablets dominated by Apple, Microsoft fulfills its long desire to shift into the tablet hardware business. The Windows tablet capitalizes on the advantage of its ownership on both the hardware and software fronts. Like Apple, Microsoft can oversee its own operating system and hardware components.
Speculations of Microsoft's targeted market are ranging from high end tablets including Apple's latest iPad to the smaller end Amazon's Kindle Fire. If Microsoft decides to tackle the lower end tablets, the Windows tablet announcement may strikes before Apple's rumored iPad Mini.
Rumors continue to swirl about Apple's potential release of an iPad mini. Reports from Taiwan suggests that the miniature tablet is scheduled to market this summer.
The concept of an iPad mini would make sense in competing for the lower end tablets market. Despite the claim, Amazon's Kindle Fire has found success in its marketplace. Though currently the lower-end tablets have not yet threatened iPad sales, Apple may be tempted to consider tapping into the market.
Apple continued to top the market when Android based tablets sales dropped in the first quarter. Though the tablet market is dropping, rival company like Samsung is hoping to make up the market with their latest generation Android products and of course the latest Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone may be one of them.
"The tablet market in general has been very seasonal. At $199 it (Kindle) was much more of an impulse buy during the holidays. You don't get much of an impulse buy during Q1," said Bob O'Donnell, IDC's program vice president.
Apple's iPad tablet continues to top the market with iPad accounting for 94.64% of all tablet based traffic according to a research undertaken by Chitika, an online advertising network.
"In conducting this analysis, we queried our vast ad network for impressions stemming from a tablet of any sort. From there we sorted our data into categories of the various tablet devices. As we had hypothesized, the iPad was overwhelmingly dominant versus the competition. Based off of impressions across our network, the iPad accounted for 94.64% of all tablet based traffic," as reported by Chitika Insights.
Microsoft's Windows Tablet will face an uphill battle against the highly polished veteran Apple iPad. The challenge is high in pulling loyal iPad users away. An online shopping/deal site PriceGrabber conducted a survey to find what how many customers would consider buying the rumored mini iPad if Apple comes out with it.
The survey was undertaken among 2,603 U.S. online shopping consumers in the April. About 52% said they would consider buying the iPad mini with a 7-inch screen for approximately $249 to $300. 48% of the respondents, however, responded otherwise.
According to the survey, some of the important features that customers would prefer to be featured in the iPad mini are that 84% wanted lowered price, 65% for 3G connectivity, with smaller size and ultra thin body by 60%. Some of the features that have been included are also the Retina display, Siri Support and the iPad mini would also be launched with iOS 6.
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