Microsoft really wants to sell their Windows 7 tablets so they provided their partners with some material to show why the iPad isn"t the right choice in a corporate environment. The material was a 10 slide powerpoint that was leaked to ZDNET showing many of the pro but mostly cons of the iPad in a business environment.
Microsoft has a tough road ahead of them if they want to beat out the iPad in business. According to The Guardian, Apple stated in their latest earnings call that 80% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying the iPad in some capacity, the same goes for 60% of FTSE 100 companies. Competing against numbers like this means Microsoft and its partners will need to create a very well designed, user friendly tablet that can get people talking like the iPad did on its release.
One of the slides Microsoft sent out contains a list of things that their enterprise customers told them were important in their business environment. This slide lists things that the iPad can"t do in the enterprise and all of the things that the Windows tablets will be able to do. They include things like remote support, peripheral support, encryption and choice in hardware.
Microsoft also asked their customers why they would choose the iPad and included some of that data in the slides. From that information Microsoft was able to include three things that make the iPad something they would choose for their environment: appeal, form factor and the ability to easily consume data.
Android tablets are completely absent from the slide show which may mean Microsoft doesn"t feel they hold enough of a market share to worry about. One also has to wonder what kinds of enterprise integration options the iPad 2 will bring and will it warrant a new slide show from Microsoft?