Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer, said to unveil new software for tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show next week, will face sceptics who say his company won’t soon narrow Apple’s iPad lead.
“By the time Microsoft gets it figured out everybody will already own an iPad,” said Keith Goddard, CEO of Capital Advisors an investing firm in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that holds Apple shares. “That train has left the station.”
Microsoft will announce a full version of the Windows computer operating system that runs on ARM Holdings technology at the show, which begins in Las Vegas on January 6, two people familiar with Microsoft’s plans said last week.
Allying with ARM is Microsoft’s way of stepping up rivalry with Apple, which has garnered the largest share of the tablet market with its iPad, a touch-screen device introduced in April that handles video, music and computing tasks. The effort may falter unless Ballmer can match the features consumers have come to expect from the iPad, Goddard said.
The new Windows version would be tailored for battery- powered devices, such as tablets and wireless handsets, the people said. Chips based on ARM technology are made by Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Samsung Electronics.
Frank Shaw, a spokesman for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, declined to comment, pointing instead to remarks by Ballmer in July.
“We’re tuning Windows 7 to new slate hardware designs,” Ballmer told analysts then. He also said, Apple has “sold certainly more than I’d like them to sell.”
Computer makers have unsuccessfully been trying to sell tablet-style computers based on Microsoft’s Windows for about a decade. Before the iPad, tablets made up only about 2 per cent of the PC market. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, has sold 7.46 million iPads through September.
