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Here’s the funny thing about the tablet debate in general.

In the argument of “is it a computer or is it a big mobile”, the iPad has a clear distinction – the latter. The iPad is basically a toy, a gadget. In fact, I would go so far as the say that Apple are the Fisher-Price of computing in general right now – I’ve raised a few eyebrows saying that to people before but it’s true.

Now, the remarks Steve Jobs made yesterday regarding the iPad being a “post-PC” device were pretty convoluted – it was just a fancy way of saying that the iPad will never measure up to the sheer power, strength and versatility of the PC because Apple doesn’t want it to – they want the iPad to remain a stupidly simple device that does 1/10th of what a PC can do because 9/10 consumers only want that much functionality from a handheld device in the first place – for now.

(I know that I am using my own math here but just humour me for now – I’m using stats that are realistic)

Enter Windows 8, or Windows Next as it is referred to by Microsoft. Personally, I prefer to stick to calling it Windows 8 – Windows Next just sounds like vaporware (and for now, it is to an extent).

The Borg are sitting this year out in the tablet wards so that they can come to market with a major point of differentiation rather than try to deliver a competitive response on a feature by feature basis and as stupefying as that may sound, it makes a lot of sense.

In the next generation of “tablet wars”, Microsoft are likely to make the argument that buying separate tablet and laptop devices and using them as a sum-of-its-parts solution is silly and that your one device should cater for every scenario that you want it to do – you sit down at your desk, use your PC (which is just a glorified docking station solution) and then you have the ability to pick up the tablet portion of the device and use it as a casual touchscreen device. Inversely, if you want a more power-user like use of your tablet device beyond pressing with a finger, you simply place the device in its dock and use the connected mouse, keyboard and monitor.

In 2011, this is hard to do because Apple have successfully achieved two things:

1. They have trivialized the cost of the tablet device itself by building such a low spec machine in the iPad, hidden its physical limitations with the iOS operating system and put the combined effort on the market at a price far below that of a laptop, and
2. Used the power of marketing to make consumers (currently) think that a tablet is a laptop/computer compliment, allowing for people to rationalize the purchase of an iPad even if they already own one or more computers

In this climate, a successful challenger the the iPad and Apple in general will need both an innovative solution with a major point of difference AND an attached marketing campaign to educate consumers out of thinking that settling for multiple devices to achieve multiple tasks is an acceptable form of computing and that’s why Apple’s competitors don’t get it right now – they are just trying to measure up to the iPad on a feature-by-feature basis.

So you can see where Microsoft are going with their line of thinking – they aren’t going to bother competing with the tablet, they are going to compete with the laptop/desktop computer.

Think about it – the past three revolutions in computing in the past five years have been, in order: netbooks, smartphones and tablet devices. Each device has enabled the true casual computing era and brought the personal computer out of the office and into the lounge room, bedroom and in some unsavory cases, into the bathroom, making it truly ‘personal’. People want wireless portability with their computers and laptops & PCs are either too heavy or too bolted down to achieve that anymore. The true reason for the iPad’s success is that in a lot of households, the casual device is becoming the primary computer and the laptop or desktop machine is drifting to the secondary device status instead.

So, the logic for a true competitor is simple – buy a computer that can be your device for casual computing purposes AND THEN ALSO be your device for your power-user functions as well. Apple are determined to keep that thinking out of minds of people so that they’ll buy iPads and MacBooks, and the only way to crumble their empire is to attack both segments with one device – that is the purpose of Windows 8, to enable convergence in the tablet and computing space and make iPads and tablets in general look like anemic toys.

Additionally, in order to allow manufacturers to break the price problem of the iPad being so unbelievably cheap, a Windows 8 ‘post-PC’ would be competing in price with the laptop/desktop computer dollar for dollar whilst eliminating the need for a 2nd purchase on a tablet device altogether. THAT is something that Apple don’t want happening and could never compete with unless they joined Samsung, HP, Dell, Toshiba et al in the 10-15% price margin territory and even then the competitive landscape would still be all evened up.

Best of all, there is a patent floating around for a small handheld device that can be docked to a keyboard, mouse and monitor powering a desktop solution as if it were a full featured computer and that patent is held by non other than – you guessed it – Microsoft. In these usual circumstances, Apple would have access to that sort of IP from Microsoft so that there are no problems at a government level with anti-trust concerns, but with this fight in the ‘post-PC’, Microsoft is coming from last place and fighting for relevancy, let alone market share. They can assign usage of that patent to manufacturers for exclusive use in solutions that feature Windows 8 at the center of the experience and turn the entire tablet computing industry on its head.

When you think about it, it’s quite brilliant and there’s not a damn thing that Apple can do about it except spread FUD.  It’s the very same reason why you’ve never seen Apple release a car stereo that you can dock your music player in either – Microsoft have a patent on that idea too.

So that brings me back to Steve Jobs’ comments at the iPad 2 launch yesterday:

Our competitors are looking at this like it’s the next PC market. That is not the right approach to this. These are post-PC devices that need to be easier to use than a PC, more intuitive. The hardware and software need to intertwine more than they do on a PC. We think we’re on the right path with this.

I mean, firstly, just because a tablet needs to be easier to use than a PC, it doesn’t mean that a tablet can’t also function as as PC as well – it just means that the software needs to cater to two different scenarios in a combined effort and the touchscreen version needs to be significantly dumbed down for a user to operate – this can be achieved with smart software, it’s not predicated on it having to be just a smart device in general.

It’s almost asinine that Jobs can try to undercut the entire PC industry and try to pitch the iPad as the a ‘post-PC’ and yet he simultaneously wants the iPad to be intentionally crippled at a cheap price point to be a companion device to the true desktop or laptop. If the iPad were the ‘post-PC’ that he describes then Apple would fire all of their OSX developers, shut down their Mac design units and just focus on selling iPods, iPhones and iPads – the personal computer would be a dead end and a waste of energy and resources.

Of course, it’s not like that at all. No, Steve Jobs made that comment to plant the seed that a PC cannot be used as a tablet because it is the very one thing that can undermine the iPad altogether. I think between now and mid-2012 we are going to hear a lot of this banter from Jobs (if God willing the man stays in good enough health that long) to try and kill this concept of the Windows 8 iPad killer before it ever gets off the ground.

And here’s the best part – history has told use that convergence in devices always win out against sum-of-its-parts solutions every time – its the very same concept that Apple used to have the iPhone combat the MP3 player + mobile phone combination, bitch slap every other manufacturer into next decade with and put Apple back on the map in IT in the first place (along with some help from a Windows Vista resenting public). If Apple are hedging their bets now and are trying to say that a tablet cannot be a PC at all, then it could very well be that the very concept which brought Apple back from the dead could also be the same one that becomes its undoing.

The only way I can imagine this next inevitable wave of tablets as computers becoming a fair fight is if Apple created a MacBook slate and cannibalized the iPad’s market to compete – and that will never happen.

So, we just have to wait (and wait and wait) for Windows 8 to RTM and see how well Microsoft can possibly pull off this vision and try to compete with the iPad from the top down through the PC chain.  If Microsoft screw up with the software and wait until Windows 9 to fix up anything that goes wrong or makes the concept too cumbersome to cause rejection from the public, it’ll be way too late by then – Apple would have made so much money from dominating the casual computing sector that they could buy up all the supply chains and content companies that give any glimmer of hope to non-Apple PC, tablet and phone manufacturers right now.

It’s going to be very interesting when it shakes out.  In the meantime, we’ll be playing with our Fisher-Price toys whilst dreaming up the next big thing in IT.

If you want to see a device that Microsoft are trying to champion in the vein mentioned above with Windows 7 as the centerpiece (and fails as a tablet), check out this device from ASUS that was announced earlier in the week and falls short with bad positioning in a 2011 market.

Related articles

• Microsoft won’t have iPad competitor until 2012? (intomobile.com)
• So Microsoft Gets A Tablet Out In Two Years — Then What? (MSFT) (businessinsider.com)
• iPad 2 – it’s all battery baby! (edibleapple.com)
• Jobs: iPad outsold all Tablet PCs ever, Samsung misquoted (electronista.com)
• Xoom and iPad 2 May Have Delivered Knock Out Blow to Windows Tablets (pcworld.com)