Microsoft recently disclosed that it took a nearly $1 billion write-down related to slashing the price of its Surface RT tablet computer. This revelation seems incongruous when coupled with a recent Forrester report that predicts an increase of global spending on tablets of 36 percent to $21 billion. Why, if spending on tablets is increasing, has the Surface performed so poorly? Many argue that the failure of the Surface has nothing to do with its capabilities and functions. In fact, this is a continuing trend seen since the ’90s of "form over function" with respect to technological devices, especially mobile devices such as phones and tablets.
Nokia first postulated in the ’90s that mobile phones served more than a utilitarian need. By most accounts, they capitalized on this hypothesis and were a market leader in the cellphone market for some time until others caught up to this trend, most notably Apple with its iPhone.
Many so-called tech experts decried the call quality as well as the software utility of the iPhone (along with its originally exclusive carrier, AT&T). Seemingly oblivious to this criticism, the iPhone took the market by storm, easily crushing its competition. Why? Because like Nokia had in the ’90s, Apple figured out that the iPhone was as much (if not more) fashion accessory than cellphone.
Despite its origins as the "cool" alternative to staid green-screen platforms, Microsoft is now often viewed as your father’s favorite computer company. The Surface suffers from poor adaptation more due to its lack of sexiness than anything else.
While hindsight is 20/20, it appears that the Surface’s uphill battle was easily predictable. "Microsoft" and "fashionable" don’t often find themselves in the same sentence. Less predictable is Apple’s loss of market share in the tablet space. Though the iPad had upward of 60 percent of the market in the first quarter of 2012, that number was down to less than 50 percent of the market a year later. Android-based tablets were the biggest gainer, garnering more than 40 percent of the market, according to a study by Strategy Analytics.
Why Android? Certainly the platform has matured technically, getting past its buggy origins. But really, Android appears to be the new flavor of the week. Will this trend continue? Hard to say, given the nature of fashionable trends, which ebb and flow seemingly without any logical basis.
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John Agsalud is an IT expert with more than 25 years of information technology experience in Hawaii and around the world. He can be reached at johnagsalud@yahoo.com.
