“When
[users of old PCs] see the features and performance and capabilities of a
product like the iPad Pro, designed for the modern digital lifestyle, many of
them will find it is the ultimate PC replacement,” Schiller said during a press
conference on Apple’s campus.
It’s
unlikely that Microsoft executives are quaking in their boots, however. Apple’s
position is clear: Windows is the past, and there are plenty of people with old
PCs who are ripe for being turned into iPad users. Schiller said that Windows
was designed for a world before the Internet, app stores and social media.
What’s more, he said that there are more than 600 million PCs that are at least
five years old and still in use.
But
it seems unlikely that Apple will manage to commandeer massive swaths of the
Windows user base. Businesses appear to be doubling down on Windows with
massive, earlier-than-expected rollouts of Windows 10, while consumer interest
in iPads appears to be waning, not growing.
“So
far, we haven’t seen any real impact from the iPad Pro on Windows 10 uptake
with enterprises,” Gartner analyst Steve Kleynhans said. “I’d say generally,
enterprises are moving very rapidly towards Windows 10, and nothing from Apple
has slowed that down. I don’t think a smaller version of the same device is
going to really change that."
Enterprises,
which are in a position to make large-scale purchases of devices like iPads and
Windows tablets, are usually slower to adopt things that they aren’t familiar
with. IDC Vice President Lauren Loverde said it’s still easier for businesses
to manage Windows devices than ones running iOS. That may lead companies to
stick to the platform they’re comfortable with.
As
Gillen pointed out, people with old PCs may not be in the market for an iPad
anyway, since they likely already have some newer device that they’re using as
well.
“Rather
than buying a new PC, they went and they bought a tablet, and whether it’s an
Android tablet or an iPad or something else, chances are good these customers
have bought something they’re using as an alternative to the PC,” Gillen said.
"They still have that old PC for the times when you really need to have
that functionality of a full screen, a keyboard and mouse dexterity, that sort
of thing."
Even
if all those millions of old PC users were to leave Windows for iOS, it wouldn’t
be a complete disaster for Microsoft. One
of the tenets of Microsoft’s strategy under Satya Nadella is that it's trying
to make its products more broadly available, so it’s still making money from
people who use Office 365 on the iPad Pro, along with applications powered by
its Azure cloud services.
And
there's also another outstanding question: how many people actually want a new
iPad these days? Apple’s financial results over the past year have shown
continually shrinking iPad sales. The company still sells millions of tablets
every quarter, but sales aren’t as good as they used to be.
Apple
is far from doomed in the tablet market, but interest in the iPad has,
objectively, cooled. And Windows tablets have the benefit of being appealing to
companies that want to upgrade aging technology but still rely on legacy
applications built to run on Windows.
If
there’s one arena Apple still has an advantage, it’s with consumers who want to
make sure their tablet has dedicated mobile apps built for it. Schiller touted
that the iOS App Store has over a million applications for the iPad, a
not-so-subtle dig at Microsoft’s Windows Store, which is growing, but still
missing key applications.
Get
ready for Microsoft to fire something back at Apple soon, when the company
holds its Build developer conference in San Francisco. It’s not yet clear what
the folks from Redmond have up their collective sleeve, but odds are good that
the Windows Store and Windows adoption in general will be on the menu.
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