The Imaginary MacPad vs. Surface. The Story of Microsoft vs. Apple Again, Google and Samsung Added!
The Imaginary MacPad vs. Surface. The Story of Microsoft vs. Apple Again, Google and Samsung Added!
When Apple first introduced the iPad, it truly changed the world. They created a new category between laptops and phones, the tablets. Great, then what? I think Apple just couldn’t keep up with the exponentially evolving markets of computing and here is why.
People started to carry 3 devices at that same time. The laptop (for work) and the tablet (for entertainment, reading, and browsing), both devices in the carrying bag, and the phone (for mobility apps) in the pocket. It was obvious that people will soon need to merge two of these devices into one, and later maybe merge all 3 into a super single device.
Moreover, the need to merge such devices was accelerated when people started to expect more new devices in whole new categories. Take Google’s Glass Project for example! Here is an awesome video showing its potential in our daily activity.
Samsung was the pioneer in implementing this merge on the phone and tablet side. They introduced their first (small and think) Galaxy Tab back in 2010, which included a phone functionality and allowed users for the first time to make phone calls through a Tab device! Then Samsung decided to introduce lots of tablets and phones in different sizes to fit multiple needs and uses. However, it went back to innovating in the phone/tablet merger to create it’s amazing Galaxy Note, which perfectly fits as a phone and tablet at the same time!
Microsoft, on the other side, focused on the hardest part of the merger, the laptop and tablet side. Soon they will be selling their amazing Surface Device with two options: Windows RT for Apps (including a fully fictional MS Office version) and Windows 8 Pro for traditional desktop programs. Both options are offering a first-time true replacement for laptops while being used as tablets at the same time! I just like to call this device a “Laplet” or “Tabtop”: Tablet/Laptop.
This move might position Microsoft back as the masses company, and put Apple back in a small niche market again. Just like few years ago. Apple is continuously proving that it can create new markets, while Microsoft is continuously proving that it can takeover these new markets in few years!!
Why didn’t Apple do the Note Device?! Why Didn’t Apple do the Surface Device?! As a MacBook Air user, I have always imagined a new revolutionary Apple device that merges the MacBook with the iPad and be called the “MacPad”. I mean who else better than Apple to do such a thing?! They already have the Mac App Store in addition to the iOS App Store!
Is Apple becoming that old big corporation who wants to protect its other product lines, the iPhones, iPads and MacBooks? Wake up Apple, we are now in an exponential era, 3–5 years in our time now is a very long period of time to wait until you create some new product line. Others might be much faster than you.
My takeout of this for such big corporations would be: “Do not own hardware, Influence it”. This will make you open for new innovations, and flexible enough to adopt them faster and cheaper.
This being said, Microsoft should also provide its software or even its Surface hardware IP to other manufacturers and become the king of OS for this new category of “Laplets”.
However, I think that Google will do it before Microsoft. I mean Microsoft people have just spent considerable time and effort to create this piece of hardware, and the management will fight to keep it as a unique differentiation for while. But Google won’t just wait, right?! Google will create it’s own “Tabtop OS” and fly with it in cooperation with other manufacturers such as Samsung and Asus.
Google mastered this in its OS strategies, it has been the smartest among all with its phone OS (Android) and their laptop OS (Chrome OS). As Larry Page sets it in his latest public appearance: Nexus (phones and tablets) are just a reference, and Google is still doing Android to fit all other devices.
I am afraid though that Google will fall into the same trap for their upcoming Glass Project. I hope that Google’s Glass will just be a reference, so that Google would encourage other hardware manufacturers to manufacture their own Glasses, yet Google would influence them by providing them with Google’s “Glass OS”!
