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Microsoft must do more for tablet PC market
European market could end up stillborn

By Tony Hallett

Published: Thursday 06 November 2003

Dell, IBM and Sony are still turning their collective noses up at the form factor but one year on, just under 92,000 tablet PCs have been shipped across the EMEA region.

The latest figures show the market leaders to be HP (with 31 per cent share), Acer (23 per cent) and Toshiba (17 per cent).

However, research house Canalys, which calculated the figures, is less than complementary about the development of the market - equivalent to less than one per cent of the total laptop segment - in particular Microsoft's efforts with its Tablet PC operating system.

In a statement director and senior analyst Chris Jones says Microsoft shouldn't be selling the software at a premium but should instead "be doing the opposite: subsidising the vendors to help them get the market up and running".

Canalys has made a number of other recommendations, including Microsoft setting up a dedicated EMEA Tablet PC marketing team and advertising fund, co-marketing with OEMs and educating widely on the OS' benefits.

Tablet PCs have in general been seen as useful for certain vertical markets, for example health care, but that has also pigeon-holed the technology in some users' minds.

The advisory also points out that a greater mass market appeal will lead to more non-Microsoft pen-based applications being developed for or ported to the platform, setting up a virtuous cycle of expansion.