It’s become a bit of a familiar refrain: Microsoft may have slipped way WAY behind Apple in terms of brand power and innovation and coolness but it’s not yet ready to be loaded into a coffin and lowered six feet under. At least if you listen to Microsoft. CEO Steve Ballmer says he expects 350 million Windows 7 enabled devices to ship this year. “It makes Windows the most popular single system,” he said at a conference in Seoul. And he’s talking big about the future, as Windows 8 (which I may call Octowindows) is released this fall and Microsoft prepares to get into the tablet market.
Now, Apple has obviously been crushing it in the tablet market, where the iPad threatens to become the noun of choice to describe tablets, in much the same way Aspirin, Frisbee, or, uh, Google has. But it’s not only the Redmond Kool-Aid (there’s another one!) drinkers saying this, it’s analysts too.
More than 103 million tablet devices will be sold in 2012, with sales tripling to 326.3 million in 2015, according to Gartner Inc. Apple is set to account for two-thirds of the market in 2012, Gartner estimates. The company’s share will drop to 46 percent by 2015, while Microsoft’s will climb to 11 percent.
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