Microsoft blamed for Tablet PC steep sales decline

Canalys said that tablet shipments in the European, Middle East and African market fell 23% in the second calendar quarter of this year, with less than 100,000 units shipping since they launched last November.

This is another classic case of IT firms thinking they know what technology people will like, and failing to take off the blinkers.

Canalys said that sales represent a fraction of notebook sales, and claims Microsoft and its hardware partners need to put more effort into pushing the concept.

Senior analyst Chris Jones claimed Microsoft is at fault. He quoted Bill Gates as saying at the launch that "the Tablet PC marks an exciting new era... limited only by the imagination of its users". But Jones claimed the real failure is a lack of effort on the part of Microsoft, particularly in this region.

He added that the shipments have fallen short of the most conservative estimates. "Microsoft needs to do something about it," he said.

Sales, he said, were hampered not only by Microsoft. Most vendors only offer one model and Sony, Dell and IBM have voted with their feet by not backing the concept.

He said that Microsoft needed to subsidise the price of the operating system, create a dedicated Tablet PC team, provide "substantial" cooperative marketing funds to OEMs, and that technical improvements are also needed. µ

L'INQ
Canalys