Gartner forecasts 0% market share for Microsoft mobile tablets in 2015

By Tom Warren, on 11th Apr 11 5:40 pm with 29 Comments

Research analysts Gartner predicted on Monday that Microsoft will hold virtually 0% market share in the 2015 media tablet market space.

Gartner released its latest forecasts of worldwide sales of media tablets to end users. The firm predicts that Apple will dominate the Tablet space by 2015, picking up 47.1% market share. Google will comfortably secure the second spot with a healthy 38.6% market share. QNX, the software behind BlackBerry’s upcoming PlayBook, will hold the third position with 10% market share. WebOS will fill the fourth spot with 3% and the rest will fail according to Gartner.

Microsoft is missing from Gartner’s report and is likely listed in the “other operating systems” 0.2% market share. The glaring omission is a bold move from Gartner who appear to only count mobile specific operating systems in their definitions. It’s not yet clear exactly how Microsoft will play its Tablet card but the company is currently working on Windows 8 which is rumored to include an “immersive” tablet user experience. However, the company may introduce Windows 8 ARM based tablets ahead of a full desktop release. Microsoft’s competitive tablet strategy is believed to be further along than expected. Dell’s recently leaked Tablet Roadmap revealed that the OEM has marked Q1 2012 as its date for a Windows 8 based slate. WinRumors understands that Microsoft has been working on an ARM based version of Windows for nearly a year and that it is laboring hard to bring this to the market as soon as possible.

Microsoft has long been criticized for its lack of a true iPad competitor. Microsoft has started its own advertising blitz featuring the Asus Eee Slate. Steve Ballmer recently showed his own personal Eee Slate device during a speech at Microsoft’s Imagine 2011 conference late last month. Microsoft’s advertizing blitz follows the introduction of Apple’s newest iPad. Apple’s latest iPad 2 features a dual-core CPU, 9x faster graphics and is slimmer and lighter than the previous generation. The company has also included front and rear cameras for use with FaceTime. Microsoft’s hardware partners have slowly been producing iPad rivals. Samsung unveiled its Sliding PC 7 series Windows 7 Slate hybrid at CES earlier this year. The device features Intel’s 1.66GHz Z670 Oak Trail processor, 10.1″ touchscreen, 32GB SSD and 2GB of RAM. The tablet ways just 2.1 pounds and is due to retail shortly for $699. The iPad currently retails at $499 and sold three million units in its first 80 days of release. The iPad is currently selling approximately 4.5 million units per quarter, Bernstein Research estimates.

Media Tablet market share 2015 - Gartner

  • http://twitter.com/Nero3000 Neerav Patel

    While I am hopeful on Microsoft’s tablet strategy, until we see what is in Windows 8 fully, I have no faith in Microsoft’s current PUBLIC strategy.

    I think Gartner is undercooking WebOS market share aswell.

  • http://twitter.com/dgwelsh David Garnett Welsh

    Do they not know about Windows 8! But I suppose they can’t make statistics from rumors of an unreleased product and can only go by what is currently available.

  • http://twitter.com/efjay01 Ef Jay

    You really should stop stringing old stories together as if they were new. This story says “The tablet ways just 2.1 pounds and will retail in March for $699″. Well its already April, and the line should say “was supposed to retail in April but so far is MIA”.

    And I agree with Gartner, MS is so busy showcasing their best applications on ios devices no one will even be thinking of buying a Windows tablet. But as long as bing is ok, its all good.

    • http://twitter.com/mcakins McAkins Online

      Yes you’re right, +1 here for complaining about copy-pasting stories, it looks stupid and mechanical.

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      Sorry but this isn’t something I do full time so until then you’ll have to put up with slightly padded out stories for the sake of information. Unless of course you want to pay me a salary? :)

    • jgriff

      No need to pad it Tom. You just wasted my time with article spam.

    • jandler

      don’t read winrumors then.

    • http://www.facebook.com/nunesb Bruno Nunes

      people are so polite these days =)
      btw this is my first time reading this news so keep it up tom.
      as a positive commentary i would say gartner doesnt take into consideration technologies under development to make predictions. I think win8 will rock the tablet wars.

    • Bburke33609

      Don’t worry it’s just the internets. They will find fault with what you are doing somehow.

    • http://twitter.com/IgnatiusAwesome Sonny Williams

      You’re still #1 in my book, Tom.
      You’re doing more to keep me informed than the people complaining are and for that I commend you.

    • Guest

      I think you can use some signs to seperate the news and the padding, like an

    • Grannyville7989

      I actually like having some of the news repeated near the bottom just in case I missed something in previous articles.

    • Mccasive

      Iam very surprised at this prediction and some of the uninformed comments some of you make out here. I have had 10.1″ windows 7 tablet (IQ slate) made by Media Itouch for over a year now. This tablet runs on 1.66 ghtz Intel Atom proccessor with 2gig Ram, a 2.0mp webcam, 4 usb ports, Hdmi output, 128gb solid state hd, Wifi, bluetooth, 5in1 memory card slot and 3g compatible sim card slot for Bell and AT&T 3g networks. Apart from the battery life which is approximately 3hrs compared to the 8+ of the Ipad, this machine is by all standard far superior to any tablet I have seen. The touch screen is very fluid and responsive though not as responsive as that of the ipad but it work excellently well. Apart from the chrome browser I can do multitouch and pinch to zoom with all the other browser and its amazing how this works. Even though I paid $1200 for this beast of a tablet I have never regreted for buying this machine. As a matter of fact two Apple fanatic coleagues of mine have purchased this machine and anyone to whom I have show this machine falls in love with it. I run all my windows programs and applications on this tablet (from Encarta to Adobe CS4 suite) and for over 14months I have never had any problem with this tablet. Even though this tablet is not so popular, Media Itouch alone has sold thousands of units of this tablet to customers including NASSA, and other security agencies and it would be very absurb for anybody to write MS completely off from tablet business.

  • http://w1ngnut.myopenid.com/ w1ngnut

    LOL! 0 * 0 = 0. That explains this post. They don’t know WHAT to expect yet, so no predictions.

  • Mobile Warrior

    This is one of the dumbest predictions Gartner’s every made!

    • sHiRoKKo1337

      I think he created this forecast on his iPad 2…

  • http://twitter.com/mcakins McAkins Online

    Count me in for that 0% Category because of the following reasons:
    1. I have a lot invested in Microsoft Platform, no amount of dissing and hating will force me to move over to another platform. The smear campaign being waged by the hates has no effect on me. From my private life to my business life, I have everything connected with Microsoft technology, I don’t intend to start from scratch.
    2. Google’s platform scares the hell out of me at the moment. Not that I am scared of Google, but scared of what Google can do to me as an end user. Google knows everything about everybody. Google is the new Microsoft, gobbling everything up along their way. The recent ITA acquisition attest to this fact. No company should have the kind of power google wield today. It is dangerous and can be abused. Don’t be Evil? Give me a break!
    3. Apple’s platform is closed. I like my freedom, strike that, I love my freedom, I don’t intend to give it away.
    4. Microsoft is now the niche plaform, unpopular. So it is not interesting anymore for hackers and Internet criminals. I bet those of us on MS platform will be wearing a smuck smile of our face soon and saying we never get infected with virus (I am looking at you Apple with your switcher ads). What I am saying? I am saying “Security by obscurity” will hold also for MS platform soon.
    5. I don’t believe in this prediction of Gathner. I don’t know who pays them to put this kind of bullshit out, but they will be proven wrong; Again! MS is no pushover, history has taught us the lesson that MS comes to its best when pushed into the corner. So let the war begin!

    • Anonymous

      “Security by Obscurity” I can disagree on you with this one because even thought it might not be the most popular platform on Mobile Smartphones Microsoft is still working hard at improving security so in the end we get the best of both world.

    • http://www.facebook.com/leoplan2 Alvaro Osvaldo López-García

      you are very misinformed about Google and Microsoft. Read more, and then comment, please

  • Guest

    maybe because Microsoft currently has no any products in the ‘media tablet’ range ?
    Microsoft positioned their tablets as ‘create and consume’ devices instead of ‘consume only’ devices.

  • GP007

    I actually don’t even think RIM will be around by 2015, but hey who knows. People talk about MS losing share or not having a tablet stratogy (which isn’t the case but w/e) yet no one seems to bring up the fact that RIM is bleeding marketshare in smartphones just as much, if not more, than MS atm. And I doubt it’ll change at all once MS gets the right support in place on WP7 as far as business goes.

    RIM’s going to be the next Palm, either way you look at it. And there’s no 2nd HP around who would want to buy it IMO.

  • Guest

    Lol. its basically bullshit …
    why to predict a type of statistic which is for sure wrong ??

  • http://twitter.com/theproweb ThePro

    Seriously, 0%?

    Windows 8 looks more tablet-ready then Android already

    And looking at the iPad i see an iPod with a big screen

    I really think Windows 8 will be amazing, and if it’s not, they will make something unique, maybe based on Windows Phone 7?

  • http://josedmorales.net Josè Daniel

    Wow .. this is sad but again this is indeed Microsoft’s fault. They could had released the Courier but no, God knows why they didn’t continue with that project!! :S

  • Guest

    This from the same company that predicts Microsoft’s Windows Phone will account for 19.5% market share by 2015! Hello ****, meet elbow.

    Surely, if they are in the business of predicting then they must anticipate that Microsoft simply won’t let the tablet space pass them by and so by 2015 advances like SOC, SSD etc will allow Microsoft and OEM to complete in the market to something I would predict > 0.2%.

  • José Luis Calvo

    The report defines Media Tablet as one with a light OS. Literally without Windows.

  • MyWIn

    Gartner is crazy, they have no idea what is coming…Put Metro UI, Bing Maps + Search, XBOX, Office, Sharepoint

    For Normal Users it will have everything that anybody has in the Market + no Restrictions

    • Anonymous

      No, what you just listed is the stuff that’s on WP7. The W8 tablet experience will likely be without peer, unless Apple SERIOUSLY upgrades the version of iOS they use on the iPad to be as functional as a Mac and less like an iPhone.

      Android for tablets? Whatever …

  • Bob

    76% of all statistics are made up anyways…