Can Windows 8 Turn Round Tablets the way Windows 7 did for Netbooks?

It’s been well known for ages now that research consistently shows that the mobile operating system most people want to see on their devices is Windows.  This doesn’t come as any great surprise given that people like familiarity and Windows is, for many people, as comfortable as an old shoe.  It was interesting to read my colleague Jason’s article yesterday on our sister site, Windows7News, about how tablet manufacturers are becoming disillusioned with slow sales of Android tablets and are now looking to Windows 8 to boost their profits.

This raises a very interesting and important question.  Can Windows 8 do for Microsoft on tablets what Windows 7 did to the netbook market?  When Windows 7 launched if you wanted to buy a netbook, and let’s face it almost everybody did, you had two choices.  Windows XP or Linux.  Despite XP’s popularity Linux hung around for some considerable time, but less than a year after the launch of Windows 7 you could not buy a single netbook, not anywhere, with either XP or Linux preinstalled.  Everything came with Windows 7.

This was an astonishing achievement for Microsoft.  The company had stated clearly during the development of Windows 7 that the operating system was being specifically engineered to run on low-power, low-performace netbooks and that’s exactly what it did.  We’re now regularly seeing Windows 7 laptops with 8 or 9 hour battery lives, double what you’d find in the average laptop.

Clearly Microsoft stormed straight into the netbook market and won overnight.  Now though can Windows 8 do the same with tablets?

There can be no doubt that Apple is the tablet king, and will remain so for many years yet, but Android is not without its problems.  There are so many variants, some specifically suited to tablets and some not, that are currently residing on tablet devices that consumers can get confused.  Why go for all this choice and complexity when the iPad is so much simpler and straightforward?  Then there’s the malware problem, and it’s a major problem that Google have so far completely failed to address.  While the general public won’t be too aware of this, they will become more aware in the time before Windows 8 launches, of this we can be sure.

So this leaves Microsoft with an opportunity.  They’re talking up Windows 8 on tablets in exactly the same way they talked up Windows 7 on netbooks.  The new Windows 8 tablet interface too, which is based on their Windows Phone Metro UI, has been universally well-received and with more than a year to go until it’s launch, Windows 8 is already generating enormous amounts of hype, press coverage and consumer interest.

Microsoft won’t need to do much to keep this momentum going either.  The ball is now rolling and people are excited.  The news that tablet manufacturers are now eyeing up Windows 8 keenly will come as welcome news to most and is sure to keep the hype going.

The major test will be next year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) where all the hot computing products for 2012 will be unveiled.  There will be a whole raft of Android tablets there I’m sure with a new version of Android.  It could be though that Windows 8 tablets don’t just take centre stage, but that it completely steals the show.

All in all, future prosperity in the tablet market is by no means certain for Google.  In Windows 8 they’ll have a competitor that’s polished, competent, popular and coming out fighting.  We could then see a massive shift in the tablet market in 2012.

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