By Jim Lundy
The announcement of the iPad 3 is only six days away and at the same time, we are now officially in the era of the Windows 8 Preview. Both the iPad 3 and Windows 8 are very popular search terms as the Google trends graphic shows. The iPad 3 will be powered by a updated version of Apple's iOS 5, the mobile operating system that is currently shipping with the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4s.
iPad 3 vs Windows 8 Preview
What OS will power the iPad 3 when Windows 8 finally ships? Based on Apple's track record of OS delivery for the last five years, the answer is iOS 6. Since Windows 8 will be the OS that powers all kinds of Windows Tablets (Slates as Steve Balmer calls them), the question is, is it a fair fight between the two Operating Systems and their associated Ecosystems.
The answer may surprise you because this is not a question about how good Windows 8 will be. It will be good and people most likely will like it far better than any previous version of Windows. It is a question of speed and agility.
The question of speed and agility has to do with how quickly Operating Systems providers are refreshing their OS. Apple is refreshing iOS every twelve months. Microsoft is refreshing Windows and Windows Mobile far less frequently. So when comparisons are made between the two mobile OS versions, when Windows 8 ships it will have OS Competitors (iOS 6 and later iOS 7) that will keep on innovating. From what we see, there are two iOS releases for every Windows Mobile release, not to mention the pace of iPhone and iPad releases (such as pending iPad 3).
It is a dizzying pace that Apple has built up on product and OS release frequency. It is also has an advantage because of the tight integration of the OS with the Apple devices such as the iPad 3 . Even Google has struggled to keep pace in the OS Time to market, but they have done so more or less. The question for Microsoft is what will they do to counter this speed in product and OS releases.
All of this will impact the workplace. Enterprises will have to look at PC refresh and re-evaluate their strategy, particularly since the cost of a fully loaded iPad 3 class Tablet is half that of a Windows 7 laptop (see our Special Report on Tablets). We also expect that the use cases for the iPad 3 and new Android Tablets will expand rapidly, even as Microsoft battles for time to seed Windows 8 into enterprises. We'll be covering this all in our upcoming Strategic Report on Tablets and Mobile Ecosystems.
