Windows 7 was made for laptops and desktops, not for the growing trend of touch-based tablet devices. However, according to a new story at ZDNet, Windows 7 is indeed in a few percent of all tablets shipped worldwide in the April-June quarter of 2011. The new stats come from the research firm Strategy Analytics and they show that Apple"s iPad is still by far the dominating product in the tablet space. It currently has control of 61.3 percent of all tablets sold, but that number is down from 94.3 percent from the same period a year ago.
Android based tablets, which were inside 2.9 percent of tablets just a year ago, has jumped up to 30.1 percent in the last quarter. Microsoft"s OS, namely Windows 7, which didn"t have any market share in tablets a year ago, is now at 4.6 percent of all tablets in the last quarter. The QNX operating system, which is the one running inside the Blackberry Playbook, is now in 3.3 percent of all tablets. "Other" operating systems take up the remaining .7 percent. The survey says that the tablet shipments do not include e-readers.
In terms of the amount of tablet units shipped in the last quarter, the study says that the iPad shipped 9.3 million units versus 4.6 million tablets that have Android inside. Only 700,000 tablets were shipped in the last quarter with a Windows operating system. Microsoft is hoping that Windows 8, which should be released in 2012, will help boost their tablet share and take some of the market away from Apple"s iOS.