No sooner as Microsoft’s MSFT Surface business got legs from distribution deals with Dell and Hewlett-Packard HPQ, Apple AAPL announced an iPad that trumps its size and adds some enterprise friendly features. Since the enterprise market is Microsoft’s bread and butter, let’s see how the products match up at this juncture.
At its annual keynote event on Sep 9, Apple launched its newest tablet, the iPad Pro.
iPad Pro
The iPad Pro has the biggest screen among all iOS devices at 12.9 inches, and it’s thin and light enough to hold all day long. Apple has targeted corporate customers this time around, unlike the first nine iPad models. Apple touts the device as being faster than 80% of the portable PCs shipped in the last 12 months.
Analysts believe that iPad Pro with its new features and accessories will blur the line between a tablet and a laptop.
Surface
Surface is a series of big tablets produced by Microsoft to amalgamate its Windows OS with its own hardware. It has launched four Surface devices: Surface RT, Surface Pro, Surface 2, Surface Pro 2 and Surface Pro 3 prior to the latest launch of Surface 3 (launched in April).
Surface Pro 3 is a 12 inch laptop-tablet hybrid, that is, it is a 2-in-1 device, which can connect with a keyboard and double as a computer. Similar to Surface Pro 3, Surface 3 also serves the purpose of both a laptop and a tablet.
It is only recently, basically after the launch of Surface 3, that its tablets are gathering momentum. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, Surface devices generated $888 million, up 117% year over year (133% in constant currency), due to higher Surface Pro 3 sales, the Surface 3 introduction and higher accessories sales. Mix continues in favor of these higher-margin devices.
Competition Intensifies
Industry tracker Forrester Research estimates that 20% of the total tablet market would consist of business customers by 2018, compared with just 14% this year. In July, industry tracker IDC reported that transformation in business processes, due to digitalization, is leading to tablets being optimized for business functions. So there will be a huge rise in the number of corporate houses using tablets as their only work device. Gartner says that sales will reach 233 million units in 2015, an 8% increase from troublesome 2014.
IDC estimates shipments for larger, so-called two-in-one tablets to increase 80% in the U.S. next year.
To that tune, both Apple and Microsoft are battling to grab as much share as they can in the space and the launch of iPad Pro has only made competition fiercer.