From tablet to desktops and smartphones, Microsoft's full attack!

Sometime ago Microsoft officially launched its own brand, "Surface," a lightweight tablet terminal that formally promulgated the former "horizontal division of labor (hardware and software from different manufacturers)" model in the computer industry.

On October 26, 2012, Microsoft started selling Windows 8, the latest operating system on the Surface, in eight countries around the world (the United States, Canada, Austria, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom). Although Japan is not in the starting area, but this computer sales around the world in good condition, Microsoft expects monthly sales of 1 million units. In particular, sales in the United States market exceeded expectations, making it necessary to fill the U.S. market with products for the European market.

The monthly sales of 1 million units are but only a tiny part of the world computer market with annual sales of 350 million units. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has repeatedly emphasized on various occasions since "Microsoft's Surface Idea was released in June this year:" The importance of Partner business has not changed. "But it is only a fear of shaken production hardware Do the surface of the manufacturers and the article only. In fact, Microsoft's goal of starting its own brand was to counter the growing power of Apple. CEO Steve Ballmer emphasizes: "The Tablet PC of other companies such as iPad can not meet the demand of work and entertainment at the same time, only our products of Microsoft can meet the demand of this market and the price is reasonable, not Apple or Amazon, not Google. "Tablet PC Terminal with an annual growth rate of 100 million units in the continuous expansion of the market scale, eroded the computer market, which used to be Microsoft's walls, in order to gain a firm foothold in the Tablet PC market, Microsoft is desperately catching up .

Past strategies against Apple have ended in failure. For example, in 2006, Toshiba and Samsung, which commissioned Zune, the music reproduction hardware to fight against Apple's iPod, finally disappeared.

As a result, Microsoft, despite its multifaceted efforts, was threatened by iPods with its own walls, so in order to compete positively with Apple, Microsoft decided to adopt strategies that it knew would affect its former partners.

Persistence as much as Apple

Surface deserved to be spent years developing the product, its power to start and application of operability and other aspects of Apple's iPad can be compared. Surface overall design is very good, the body by Microsoft's so-called "VaporMg" aluminum alloy, the fuselage feel as smooth and round as apple. But also comes with a creative keyboard case and power adapter.

Surface has the biggest advantage iPad does not have is that you can use Microsoft Word, Excel and other software. At the same time, manufacturing costs are reduced and battery life is long due to the use of ARM's CPUs, which are widely used in smartphones and tablet terminals.

ASUS, Lenovo and Samsung are also selling tablets powered by ARM's "windowsRT" OS.

For example, the ASUS RT tablet equipped with a keyboard costs $ 599, while the Surface uses the cheapest keyboard, which is $ 599, which means the price is equal. So, as long as there is no big difference in performance, users will naturally choose genuine. For the above reasons, Japan Acer said it would delay the time to market its own products, continue to observe the market trends. This shows that the cooperation between Microsoft and cooperative manufacturers has been a rift.

The bottom of the manufacturers difficult situation

Is expected to be listed next year, equipped with Intel CPU windows8 version of Surface will expand discordant. This version if you can remove the removable keyboard, in fact, is the PC. As the application settings and the same PC (RT machine can only be downloaded from the Microsoft store), its advantages are self-evident. This will inevitably greatly threaten the interests of cooperative manufacturers.

CEO Steve Ballmer in his annual report to shareholders on October 9 declared: "Microsoft is a device and service as one of the integrated enterprise." In the future, it will expand self-developed hardware (equipment) lineup. And once Microsoft expands its reach from desktops to smartphones and desktops, it is bound to greatly reduce the space for computer makers to survive.

And this trend for the computer Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard, its influence may be limited. This is because, after all, these vendors and Microsoft have exchanged information in the early days of development to become long-term partners in the development of hardware. If the future sales increase, then due to economies of scale, but also to the same price of Microsoft Genuine sales.

However, in contrast, computer manufacturers with a low market share in the world have a great influence. This means that all Japanese computer makers may be greatly affected. Due to the rapid development of smartphones equipped with iPhones and Android, Japanese branded mobile phones were instantly removed from the market. The same situation can happen in the computer market.