News Week of March 4, 2012

Tablets Will Take Over Sooner Than You Think: Five Telling Trends

On an earning conference call in January, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, �I truly believe, and many others in the company believe, that there will come a day that the tablet market in units is larger than the PC market.� (See full transcript at Seeking Alpha) �Question is when?� asked Horace Dediu on the Asymco blog. What follows was his detailed projection, with lots of yummy looking charts, that came to the conclusion, �Given these assumptions, the day when the tablet market (by units) will exceed that of traditional PCs will come sometime in the fall of 2013.� 

Now all of this is about sales, not installed base. And most observers, Dediu included, consider the tablet market to be mostly additive to the PC market�many users will have both. But the point is that just as many web sites have seen their share of traffic from mobile grow, and in some cases cross the 50% threshold, so too will the remaining desktop share be further fragmented by tablets. And when Apple finally gets the iTV thing right, content producers of all kinds (not just TV-centric ones like ESPN) will be looking at programming for four distinct screens. (Source: Anthony Wing Kosner, Forbes)

10 ways Windows 8 beats the iPad

Windows 8 is now available for anyone to download, and it already shows a ton of potential. In fact, Microsoft�s bold new OS, which reminds us a lot of Windows Phone, outshines the iPad in some key areas. Granted, there were things we didn�t like in our Windows 8 Consumer Preview � and the iPad 3 or iPad HD is just around the corner � but there�s no question that Apple will soon have a real fight on its hands. Here are the top 10 ways Windows 8 is better than the iPad right now. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBCUniversal.)