Microsoft is very ambitious, excited and hopeful with its Windows 8 launch which is due near the end of this year. More so, it has plans of launching ARM based tablets running Windows 8, which are officially named Windows RT tablets. These tablets will be able to offer a number of Windows-specific features which may help Microsoft compete with Apple in the tablet market. Some of these features are detailed below.
Microsoft Office:
Microsoft Office is a feature which can prove to be a true game-changer in its own might. It is one of the most cherished and needed business needs and is missed dearly by most iPad users since no other alternative iPad app has been able to provide an exact alternative to Microsoft Office. It is for this reason that Microsoft has a fair chance at success with a Windows 8 tablet which will be offering Microsoft Office in all its glory. Hopefully, Microsoft will try to offer the entire suite, as well as Track Changes support, through an Office app.
Diversity And Volume of Available Apps:
Apple has a headstart of years over Microsoft when it comes to apps for tablets. Apple has hundreds of thousands of them, offered to cater to all kinds of needs of tablet users. Although Microsoft may launch with a lot of pre-emptive preparation, it will still need some time before it can tout a substantial numbers of apps for the Windows RT tablets. Until then, iPad will have a definite edge over Windows 8 tablets.
Ability to create Custom Apps:
Apple’s iOS development platform has been around for quite some time and has been improving continuously over time. This lets the companies who want to have custom apps created accomplish so pretty easily. However, the technology that will be used to create Metro apps has been around too, though not as widely used and popular as iOS development. Although Microsoft will be able to gain traction with its own development platform, developers may still feel lot more comfortable with the iOS platform.
Limited Option For Integration With Existing Enterprise Systems:
Both iPad and the upcoming Windows RT tablet will have limited integration options for many popular enterprise systems. Thus, at this front, both of them will be even. However, iOS will still have a number of third-party apps to fill in that gap. Will Microsoft make sure that when Windows RT tablet launches, it has a similar repository of apps? That remains to be seen.
Familiarity For Businesses:
Microsoft had been claiming that given the long history of Windows and its user-friendliness, the corporate crowd won’t need a learning curve when it starts using its Windows 8 tablets. However, that may not be entirely true. While businesses are already pretty familiar with the deployment tools of iPad, switching to Windows 8 tablets will be a hassle for sure. Nonetheless, it all comes down to what Microsoft will be offering through the tablet and whether or not that will be preferable to an iPad.
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