Recent studies show that Apple has not been able to increase its share of the tablet market with the iPad family. The launch of the iPad Pro offered CEO Tim Cook a chance to define large-screened computing to Apple's advantage, but he has not made the best use of that opportunity. Instead it has been Satya Nadella who has delivered.
Let's start with the iPad. If you look over Apple's portfolio, it is one of the weakest areas in terms of corporate performance. The iPhone family is grabbing an insane level of profit from the smartphone ecosystem, the Mac range is established in the high-end laptop market, Apple Music is at least tracking the competition, but the iPad... it's not doing it for Tim Cook.
The iPad Pro was a chance to reinvigorate the line. Apple could have used the twelve-inch tablet to set out a strong vision of portable computing, to define the standard, and to use its marketing power to impose its view of the platform. Instead the iPad Pro has been left as 'a bigger iPad' which in turn feels like 'a bigger iPhone'. First-party apps have more space to work in but no fundamental changes over other iOS devices, third-party developers are reluctant to invest time and resources to port apps to the iPad Pro that would sell for a dollar or two when the original apps can be sold for upwards of $100 on the Mac.
Tim Cook reiterates at every opportunity that the iPad Pro is not a Mac and it is not a Mac replacement, while in the same breath showing the iPad Pro off with the keyboard cover and Apple Pencil stylus using desktop focused apps such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Illustrator. The message, muddled as it is, is that the iPad Pro is not a 'proper' computer. The chance to define the iPad Pro (and by association the twelve-inch tablet market) has passed Apple by
Meanwhile, Strategy Analytics look at the tablet market in its 'Tablet Operating System Forecast' report highlights Microsoft's relative success in the tablet market. Sales of Windows tablets are up 58% year-on-year, and are projected to reach 22 million for calendar year 2015.
That would give Windows a ten percent share of the tablet market, just under half of Apple's projected 22 percent. With iPad's share projected to remain flat and Microsoft moving upwards to an estimated 18 percent in four years time, the momentum that has deserted Apple now resides in Redmond.
The third side of the triangle is Android, which has a far larger market share of the tablet space (68 percent) over a variety of form factors.
Microsoft's tablets are predominately in the twelve-inch category, and that momentum of growth projects 'success' to consumers. If anyone is going to help define the larger tablet space over the next year months, it's going to be Microsoft. Satya Nadella has looked at the fractured ecosystem of manufacturer devices running a common OS and decided that this wasn't a clear enough vision of Microsoft's future in software and services. He has taken chances with the Surface brand to build that vision and sell it to the world and so far it is a success in terms of marketing and positioning.
Even if you don't purchase a Surface and go with a device from Dell, Lenovo, Acer, or any other manufacturers, you are getting a package much closer to Microsoft's vision of large-screened tablet and portable computing than the competing Apple or Android systems.
Try this on for size. Would you be comfortable calling the iPad Pro Apple's attempt at manufacturing a Microsoft Surface for its customer base? I know that I am, and that role reversal, handing the power of definition to Microsoft, is a key moment not just in Nadella's rebuilding of Microsoft, but in Cook's ability to create a global change using Apple products.
Microsoft has out-Appled Apple with the ability to define the market, and it will continue to reap the rewards as we move forward into 2016.
