Monday, August 22, 2005
MEX - The PMN Mobile User Experience conference - You only get one chance
Interesting post by Marek Parlowski:
Roger Kay, a former IDC analyst and now president of his own research firm (Endpoint), has published a forecast on Tablet PCs. It contains an interesting account of how Microsoft evaluates its potential markets:
“When questioned about whether the tablet was really up to shouldering the mainstream computing needs of the broad horizontal market, Gates was unwavering in his assertion that Windows XP Tablet Edition would make it so. Microsoft’s focus group research, he said, showed that people hated the tablet the first day, grumbled about it on the second, sort of got it on the third, and so on until the 10th day, when they said they couldn’t live without it.”
If we accept Kay’s account, Microsoft’s approach can only be described as fundamentally disconnected from the reality of consumer buying habits. How many consumers do you know who are going to buy a product they hate on first sight? Unless Microsoft and its OEMs are willing to lend every potential customer a tablet until such time as they ’sort of get it’, it is hard to see how Tablet PCs are ever going to get off the ground.
Of course, this isn’t just about Tablet PCs - if this is the view held by the senior management at Microsoft, it is hardly surprising their other mobile products are still the subject of criticism.
MEX - The PMN Mobile User Experience conference - You only get one chance
