The problem, of course, is that these Swiss Army-knife computers haven't proved to be a hit with consumers thus far. And the great mystery is why either company thinks anything is likely to change. Let's start with HP. On the plus side, the company has some attractive-looking computers, including the Spectre x2, one of the machines Whitman was referring to. The new Spectre has some nifty features, like the ability to use a current-generation Intel chip without a fan, 1920 x 1080 HD resolution, and up to 12 hours of battery life. Oh, it also lets you remove the screen from the keyboard to use it as as a tablet. Here's the thing, though, it's a terrible tablet. At 2.18 lbs., it's heavier even than the too-heavy Surface Pro 2 (which clocks in at 2 lbs.) To get a sense of those weights in tablet terms, the new iPad Air is 1 lb. and it replaced a device many felt was a bit too heavy yet came it at under 1.5 lbs.
The Spectre isn't especially nice as a laptop either. Its 4.4 lb. weight isn't awful, but it's far from state of the art for a Windows Ultrabook. Sony's Vaio Pro, for example, tips the scales at under 3 lb. even when equipped with its optional extra battery, which allows it to exceed the Spectre's time unplugged. The Vaio isn't a convertible or detachable, but you could carry it and an iPad with nearly half a pound to spare. And you'd literally be able to work on the two of them all day long before your power ran out. On top of that, you would not only get access to all your Windows apps, but the thousands of tablet-optimized apps that run on the iPad. It's certainly true you'd have to juggle two devices for all this convenience, but evidence so far suggests that's exactly what people are choosing to do. The vast majority of iPad sales are going to people that already own a PC. Surely, everyone understands this by now?
Yet if that were true, why does Microsoft keep spending effort marketing Surface against the iPad? And why does it think the 'one device to rule them all' message has any chance of resonating with consumers? Apple has already sold 170 million iPads. The vast majority of those run apps, games and media purchased through Apple and not easily moved to a Surface. (Music, which started all this for Apple, is ironically the easiest content to move.) This puts Microsoft in a quandary: The people with iPads are very unlikely to want a Surface. The people without any tablets are not, at this point, what you'd call early adopters. In addition to all those iPads, remember, millions of Android tablets have already been sold, too.
But the idea of a two-in-one, jack-of-all-trades computing device appeals very much to the techie, early-adopter types. The folks who still find they need a computer most of the time but also would like to have a tablet on hand regularly. For more and more 'ordinary' people, that scenario is fading into the background. The computer is the thing gathering dust in a home office somewhere, turned on only occasionally. Of course, it's still ubiquitous at the office but most people don't bring that device home. To Microsoft's credit, they seem to get that tablets in the home are about more than running Office. Two new promo videos ( here and here) show Surface as a cooking aid and a family device. They point out legitimate weaknesses in iPad: It lacks hands-free gestures and it lacks multiple user accounts. The lack of the latter in particular is a mystifying omission at this point on Apple's part.
But they also highlight something Microsoft probably doesn't want you to think about. Even with these apparent 'shortcomings,' millions of iPads are being used in people's kitchens this Thanksgiving to provide recipe assistance and millions more will be used by children to entertain them while the turkey is cooking. It's hard for Microsoft to understand this and must frustrate the company to no end, but fixing these 'flaws' of the iPad is not going to make the Surface a hit. And worse still, trying to sell it against the iPad based on such narrow features has about as much chance as the television campaign based on pointing out the iPad has no USB port or SD card slot. No one cares! If they did, well, Apple wouldn't have sold 170 million iPads.
Right now, the products that are successfully competing with iPad come mostly from Samsung, which sells slightly less expensive tablets that happen to run Android. Samsung does offer a stylus, something Apple refuses to do, but mostly it's competing on price and on not running iOS. Market share figures that show Apple losing ground to sub-$100 tablets should be dismissed. Neither Apple nor Samsung is chasing that market. Ironically, despite being on the second-generation of Surface and spending hundreds of millions to market it, Microsoft still isn't really chasing Apple either. It keeps wanting you to believe Surface is better because the iPad is just too limited while Apple keeps selling the iPad precisely because it is limited.
HP should learn a lesson from all this. Microsoft has been super excited about convertible PCs for a long time too. Outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer was touting them months ago as he talked up the latest features of Windows. Yet even with attractive products like the Lenovo Yoga line, PCs that are bad at being tablets and only decent at being notebooks have failed to re-energize PC sales. Why things would suddenly change for HP at this point is anyone's guess. 'I think it's too early to tell how the demand for convertibles is going ... this Christmas season,' Whitman said. Is it? The selling season is over in 3 weeks. If convertible PCs are the hot product of 2013, she should know by now. More than likely, demand for computers will again slump as Windows 8 leaves people befuddled and holiday budgets get spent on tablets, game consoles and smartphones. HP and Microsoft, at least, can commiserate with one another.
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