It's Microsoft vs. Google while Apple runs free

We're on the eve of Microsoft's launch of Windows 8 and their big new push into tablets. I work with some folks who would have been hard core Windows experts a few years ago but I was surprised to hear them chatting enthusiastically about their Android embedded sticks and hackable low cost tablets from Ainol Novo.

Microsoft's delay in competing with Apple in the consumer tablet market has left the door open for Google to gain huge traction amongst windows geeks with their eminently hackable Android tablets. As Google doesn't make money on Android and Microsoft's business is based on making money from Windows Android tablets will always be cheaper and they are sophisticated enough to fascinate the IT crowd.

Meanwhile, Apple is left to capture the mainstream tablet market while the others fight it out for the geeks.

Microsoft has dropped the ball in recent years but they are doing everything right at the moment, it's just that it might be too late to catch up. If corporate IT departments find that their users have Android or Apple tablets and phones they may start to move off Exchange and that will leave Microsoft out of the picture.