Well it appears that someone is finally waking up and taking note of the iPad over at Microsoft and no longer just laughing it off as a “big iPhone”.
Notes from ZDNet, Business Insider, and CNet have information and links to the Microsoft presentation where they spell out why the iPad isn’t manageable like a Windows desktop or portable. Which of course, misses the point entirely, especially with the fact that Microsoft parters like Citrix and VMware are aggressively marketing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and thin client iPad solutions.
With native solutions like the Citrix Receiver and Wyse PocketCloud companies can acquire a fully autonomous tablet computer for native data management (mail, calendaring, web etc.) plus the ability to run Windows desktops and applications remotely. In fact I’ve received several Citrix marketing messages in the last few days that go right to the point and push the iPad as an enterprise solution.
On top of that, equivalent client apps are available for Android, which means that the lack of a credible Microsoft based product in this space of lightweight, instant on, high autonomy tablets is going to have an impact on OEM portable sales in the short to medium term whether it’s Android, iOS, WebOS or QNX that take the bulk of the sales.
Now Microsoft isn’t a total loser in this game since you still need Windows licenses in the datacenter to host VDI or Citrix applications, but with judicious use of Windows Server Datacenter licenses, plus concurrent use CALs, enterprises can start seeing some savings on license costs. Caveat: the server, storage and network infrastructure required is costly and many VDI deployments are running TCO-neutral as compared to traditional desktop deployments, but bring other benefits to the table like centralized backups, better security, just-in-time provisioning, instant lock-out, etc.
I use many of these products and they aren’t perfect due to the disconnect between touch vs mouse based interfaces, where some applications like Excel are a bit of a pain due to the density of graphic controls, but they are certainly more than good enough in most instances. In-house and vertical apps can also be fairly easily revamped to provide larger button targets for use in these hosted environments without requiring a full-on rewrite of the UI for some kind of web interface.
I think that this is the first real sign that Microsoft is aware of the threat that the iPad poses to its desktop hegemony in the enterprise. It’s just a little sad that the response is a powerpoint deck and not a product, especially after they showed that their research labs could design something like the Courier.
Update: And I forgot to mention the fact that iPhones and iPads linked to Microsoft Exchange can be remote wiped, not to mention that if the Exchange Active Sync over https isn’t secure enough, that should be news to all of the Microsoft sales people pushing Exchange combined with Android and Windows Phone as secure enterprise messaging. Last but not least, there are some very complete third party solutions for managing mobile assets like those from Good Technologies.