“Productivity” will be the key for Microsoft Corp to win in the next tablet chase, an executive from the US software giant said yesterday, in an effort to boost the adoption of the Windows operating system (OS).
“Devices that run on Windows operating system is productivity-oriented rather than consumption-oriented [like those offered by iPad],” said Brad Brooks, Microsoft corporate vice president of Windows consumer marketing and product management.
The iPad uses a proprietary Apple Inc operating system called iOS.
Tablets that use Windows will boast strong productivity with the popular Windows Office solutions, not to mention that more than 80 percent of rich content over the Web are offered in Flash, a program that isn’t supported by iPad, said Brooks, who was in Taipei to mark the first anniversary of Windows 7.
Microsoft is also devising digital pen solutions to boost productivity and that could be in its next OS offering for tablets, he added.
Brooks nonetheless said iPad was a “good device.”
Among other benefits that iPad offers: simplified Internet browsing, easy-to-use video and e-mail viewing, he said.
Microsoft believes that “rich clients” — referring to powerful hardware instead of stripped-down devices with lower computing power — would offer consumers a better user experience and software.
A number of Taiwanese PC firms, including Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) and Acer Inc (宏碁), have plans to roll out tablet PCs using both Windows and Google Inc’s Android by the end of the year or next quarter.
However, most of them are betting on Android, for which the licensing fee is minimal compared with Windows.
“Android-powered computers offer faster turn-on time than Windows,” said Scott Lin (林顯郎), Acer’s Taiwan operations president.
Acer, the world’s second-largest PC vendor, has decided to bundle both Android and Windows with its future lineup of netbooks, saying that this puts choice back in the hands of consumers.
Brooks was unfazed, saying Taiwanese partners are “core to Microsoft business and [we] will work with them in expanding values.”
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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