Tools Disguised As Toys
BGR on Microsoft still not getting the whole tablet thang:
Windows-based tablets haven’t been big successes so far, whether they use the desktop-centric Windows 8 or the tablet-centric Windows RT. iMore’s Rene Ritchie does some sharp analysis of Microsoft’s latest marketing campaign and concludes that the company simply does not understand why people are buying tablets in the first place. Essentially, Microsoft doesn’t get that its central criticism of the iPad — that is, that it’s more of a toy that can’t be used for doing serious work — is precisely why consumers are drawn to it in the first place. Simply put, consumers have PCs at their offices if they want to do work. When they’re at home, they want to play around with their tablets instead; they like having toys.
As Clay Christiansen famously points out in The Innovator’s Dilemma, most innovations aren’t taken seriously when they debut and by the time they gain momentum, it’s usually too late for competition to respond. My favorite one was when people in the media and some people in the government thoughts the Internet a fad back in the 1990s.
The iPad might look like a toy because kids love them, but when I’m on business trips I see iPads being used in first class seats and then I see them again when I’m in client meetings at Fortune 500 companies.