More Windows tablets sold than PlayBooks in Q2 2011

It has been reported by Strategy Analytics that in Q2 2011, Microsoft has seen more tablets shipped with its operating systems than RIM did with its own tablet. Now this wouldn’t have been surprising if it was comparing Apple’s iPad against the BlackBerry PlayBook but in this case we’re talking about tablets running Microsoft’s operating system: Windows 7, which wasn’t even designed for tablets in the first place.

Microsoft took 4.6% of the tablet share in that quarter, while RIM only took 3.3%. As for the top two – Apple was in the lead with 61.3% and Google had 30.1% in second place. To be fair, there are many more manufacturers making Windows-based tablets than there are making the PlayBook – but so does Android and it has yet to beat the iPad in the market share department.

Windows 7 has also been around longer, which could possibly explain why people are choosing it over the PlayBook: it’s a more familiar operating system vs. the relatively new and unknown QNX operating system on the PlayBook. Whatever the reason is, the findings show that people just aren’t buying the PlayBook. Hopefully RIM pulls better results for the remainder of the year.

George Wong
Categories: Tablets
Tags: blackberry playbook, market share, Microsoft, RIM, Tablet, windows 7