Microsoft denies Tablet PC dive

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 31 Jul 2003 at 17:03

Microsoft has said it has no reports of sales figures in decline for Tablet PCs, despite Canalys figures showing that shipments were down 23 per cent.

The Canalys report showed shipments of Tablet PCs had taken the hit this quarter, and total shipments since launch had yet to reach 100,000.

Even so, Microsoft has told us that however many products are shipping into the channel, sales for Tablet PCs have increased sequentially since launch, both globally and here in the UK. And it responded it had not seen any decrease in those figures for this most recent quarter.

'We've not seen any analyst sales data reporting a decrease in sales for the second quarter of '03 on a global level,' the company responded. 'We continue to see new hardware OEMs such as NEC and Panasonic develop Tablet PC models; we also believe that new technology advances such as Intel's Centrino processor will make the Tablet PC an even more attractive product for businesses of all sizes as they plan for future computing needs.

'We also continue to see high numbers of large enterprises who are conducting Tablet PC pilots, and who are actively evaluating how to best deploy Tablet PCs within their company. Even the overall slowdown in IT spending and economic growth has not deterred these companies from proceeding with their pilot programs and to take the Tablet PC very seriously as a major component of their future mobility computing environments.'

The company is equally bullish about progress in the UK. It expects demand to be strong for the devices from both mainstream and business sectors: 'We are continuing to hear positive feedback from Tablet PC customers as diverse as the Nationwide Building Society and Greenwich & Kent Schools about the benefits that they are experiencing with Tablet PC. We are very optimistic that the Tablet PC will see further success across broad horizontal and vertical markets in the months and years to come.'

See also:

Tablet PC shipments taste bitter pill