Will the boom of tablets like iPad last long? Microsoft and Dell doubt it

With the Apple’s iPad tablet computer sweeping the consumer electronics industry, the software giant Microsoft is not very bullish about the future of this new category while Dell says iPad will fail in the enterprise.

At a lunch held today in Sydney by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), Microsoft's global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie said that he did not know whether the booming new category was here to stay.

Mundie said he believed the smartphone "as it emerges more will become your most personal computer", while laptops would occupy a space he dubbed the "portable desk".

"I don't know whether the big screen tablet pad category is going to remain with us or not," he said.

In the meanwhile, Dell’s global head of marketing for large enterprises and public organisations, Andy Lark, said that iPad would ultimately fail in the enterprise. Read the rest of this entry »