Micro$haft is done...........

Way too late to the party. Keep up the great work Monkey Boy, your doing a fine job. We all love ya........

I Agree

By 2014, they probably will have caught up - to the iPad 2.

Of course by then, Apple will be well past rev. 2 leaving them still lagging woefully behind.

A good thing

MS may be evolving from a truly evil firm into a useful entity, even if only to help keep the likes of Apple working to remain far, far ahead.

Idiots

What they fail to mention is that they are counting ALL other manufacturers against ONE manufacturer. Apple will still be the largest individual manufacturer by FAR, whicl all the others complete agaist each other.

iPad to be eclipsed?

This is possible since there is only a single iPad and there are dozens of other Android tablets. Apple may simply be unable to build enough iPads to keep everyone satisfied. However, this is not 1995. Being the number 2 most popular OS isn't the death sentence it once was. Windows has 85% of the Market, and Apple about 14%. Yet, of all the PC manufacturers out there, which company is the most profitable?

The problem with the tablet is unlike the PC, Apple has set expectations. In the PC sector, the Wintel box set the standard: Cheap and cheaply built. Most people bought the lowest, cheapest boxes.

In the tablet arena, the iPad set the standard, and everyone else follows. The problem competing tablets have is that they have to use the same quality of materials as the iPad, and they can't undercut the iPad in price like they could with the Mac. That's the limitation the tablets really have now. Why buy a Xoom over an iPad if the Xoom is more expensive? Why buy a 7" Galaxy Tab which costs almost as much as a 10" iPad?

This is not to say that the competition is bad. It's just to say that competing against the iPad is so much more difficult. You have to really have a superior product at a competitive price. Maybe in a couple of years, the iPad won't have the top of the line reputation it currently has, and competitive tablets might make a dent in sales.

Then again, Apple might simply replace the iPad with the next big thing and totally s**** up the market again leaving everyone else in the dust.

Mac OS post-Lion on ARM?

One sentence that most people probably missed:

"ARM would also play an increasing role in traditional PCs at 23 million three years from now."

The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple released Macs running ARM chips within three years. Apple has already developed their own dual core ARM variants. Quad-core ARM variants would be the next step. And Lion already includes many iOS-like features.

Of course, that would mean that all apps would need to be ported to the post-Lion Mac OS on ARM. That would give Apple the perfect opportunity to develop their own Photoshop replacements etc. (Or maybe Apple could simply buy Pixelmator etc.)

Adobe dragged their feet for 10 years before porting their grotesque bloatware to Mac OS X. And it hurt Mac sales. Never again.

Amazon's tablet will be clear #2

If Amazon does release their own iPad clone, it will easily dominate all other Android-based iPad clones. Amazon has all the tangible ingredients for success: music, video, ebook content, plus their own app store, plus hundreds of millions of accounts with associated credit card numbers.

Amazon also has the intangible ingredients for success: mindshare, brand equity, and years of experience selling to actual consumers. For example, Amazon supposedly is the most-trusted brand in America: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10457727-62.html

What, exactly, do the other Android iPad cloners have? How about Samsung? Well, they make great TVs and decent smartphones. Content? Nope. Hundreds of millions of accounts? Nope. But hey, they sure make some nice flat-panel TVs.

One thing is for sure

If analyst has to learn something is that the only thing predictable about apple is that anything about apple can't be predictable.
I have see tens of so called analyst that can be absolutely right about HP, Microsoft, Dell, but never right about apple's predictions.
So Mr "Analyst", if you don't want to make a fool of your self, you better star predicting about some other company.

2014 Ipads No longer selling

Android and windows tablets are now out selling Apples old style Ipad 50 to 1
Apple says they are not really worried that much as they have not made an IPod for 12 months and the new Iwatch which they introduced 18 months ago is out selling the old IPad 100 to 1
Microsoft says they will have there computer watch clone in 13 months time and will soon out sell Apples version

DIAF trolls

sketchy forecasts

Here's the problem with forecasts like this. What is it that they have actually measured? Is it the actual sold to users devices or is it the actual manufactured / still in the retail chain or even worst, ordered but not yet paid for devices that they are counting. And yes none of this would make a difference if we were talking only about current year numbers but then what the analyst has done is gone and used those same numbers for the forecast without taking any other factors into account and you get the very unbelievable forecasts that sells very well with Far East manufacturers yet is miles away from the truth.

I know for a fact that this is not based on actual retail numbers. Apple does not disclose those and neither do the rest of the major retailers. It would be an absolute nightmare collecting numbers like this not to mention that once you have them you probably won't be able to release them because of the NDAs that you have to sign. So basically at best those numbers are based on what manufactures expect to sell in the current year and if anything Asian manufacturers have no idea how big the tablet market is and they grossly overestimate their own target market. So enough with the BS forecasts and expectations of Android taking over the tablet space. All the Android users have a huge s**t storm coming their way in the form of patent law suits and once that it over the licencing fees will drive their retail price too high and their margins too low for them to be able to really compete.

MS knows that very well and what they are hoping for is that eventually the majority of those companies would just choose to jump ship and licence Windows Whatever for tablets. Only none of that is going to happen in the next couple of years and probably not even in the next 5. So yeah this time around Apple has the market eating out of it's palm. Oh and by the time all this is over, the platform tie in will be so bad that most users will not want to switch even if it saves them money.

But hey believe what you want :)