When Windows 10 launched, Microsoft’s big push, beyond trying to convince haters of Windows 8 to upgrade, was for “one Windows for all devices”.
But that dream has stalled. Windows is struggling on smartphones, claiming a 1.7% share last year, according to data from Gartner, which Microsoft chief executive, Satya Nadella, admits is “unsustainable”.
However, in the convertible market – laptops that are also tablets – it’s a different story. The Microsoft’s Surface has been worth $4.28bn to the company since the launch of the Surface Pro 3 in June 2014. While Windows 10’s promise of one operating system across every device may not be working on the mobile end of the spectrum, it has enticed a new breed of PC makers: smartphone manufacturers.
Where traditional PC manufacturers, such as Asus, Acer, Toshiba, HP and Dell have approached the creation of tablets and convertibles from a laptop perspective, smartphone manufacturers are starting to create Windows 10 tablets that are more like consumer electronics or gadgets than traditional computers.
It’s the difference between a workhorse, clunky laptop and a smartphone, where the industrial design is just as important as the hardware within it.
Microsoft’s Surface sits at the centre. It started life looking like a chunky, high-end computer and is now verging towards the consumer electronics sector. It’s still a PC inside, but now it’s thin, light, almost svelte.
But it is companies such as Huawei that should have the HPs of this world worried.
The company’s first Windows 10 tablet, the MateBook, is everything a traditional PC is not. Built around Intel’s Core M, which powers Apple’s MacBook among other things, is light, slim, attractive, with a high-end feel – something you’ll want to hold and not feel embarrassed by.
Colin Giles, executive vice president of Huawei’s Consumer Business group says people don’t want two devices anymore. “We’re going after the prosumer, who needs a PC to get work done, but then wants to be entertained with a device that is light, feels premium and something you actually want to use.”
It’s a change of mindset, something mobile manufacturers have in spades, while PC manufacturers have been designing by numbers for years.
Dan Dery, vice president of Chinese mobile manufacturer Alcatel said: “Windows 10’s cross-device integration – from smartphone through to PCs – will help us make an entry into mobile computing, but with a different mindset taken from the mobile business not the computer business.
“It’s very good news for people with our background, but not good news for companies from the PC industry, because it will likely increase the pressure as more players from our side of the industry enter the computer market.”
Alcatel’s Plus 10 Windows 10 tablet also launched at MWC, taking a similar route to Huawei – a tablet that docks into a keyboard to turn it into a Windows laptop.
Whether the market for Windows 10 tablets is strong enough to support the new mobile-centric players remains to be seen.
Tablet sales have been slowing, with even the dominant Apple iPad faltering as users fail to replace their machines as frequently as smartphones. But convertible and ultramobile PCs are about the only area of growth in the PC industry, forecast to grow by over 64% by Gartner.
For traditional computer manufacturers the influx of mobile makers will be an unwelcome increase in pressure in a market already being squeezed, down 8.3% year-on-year in the final quarter of 2015.
For consumers, however, we might end up with Windows tablets and computers we actually want to use beyond Microsoft’s Surface.
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