DELL: Here's Why Windows Tablets Can Become A Giant Business For Us
Earlier this year, figures from Strategy Analytics showed that Windows 8 tablets only accounted for 5.8% of the overall tablet market in Q1 2014, while Android tablets snagged 65.8% of the tablet market share and iPads comprised 28.4%.
The numbers may not look promising, but David Schmoock, Dell's president of global sales and client solutions, explained why Windows 8 tablets are ideal for the enterprise space.
Consumers tend to view tablets as an extension of their smartphone, which is why iPads and Android tablets may seem more prominent to the everyday shopper, Schmoock told Business Insider. Enterprise customers, however, think of tablets as an extension of their PC.
It's not uncommon, Schmook said, to see employees within a business walking around with both an iPhone and a Windows 8 tablet instead of an iPad. To them, it's more important to have their tablet mirror their PC experience rather than their personal smartphone.
In most cases, commercial customers that use a Windows 8 laptop or desktop as their primary PC want the same experience to translate to a tablet.
Manageability is also a large part of why Windows 8 tablets make sense in the enterprise space. If an employee is using his or her tablet primarily for work-related tasks, it's easier for IT to manage one platform rather than two.
Commercial sales are a large part of Dell's success- in fact, it accounts for 80% of the company's entire overall business, according to Schmoock. But that doesn't mean the company is restricting itself.
In addition to selling standard notebooks, desktops, hybrids, and Alienware gaming notebooks, Dell has broken into new product categories such as Chromebooks and Android tablets in recent years.
"[There's] never been one solution that fits the world," Schmoock said.
When it comes to the Android tablet market in particular, Dell's Venue 7 and 8 tablets face stiff competition. A recent report from the IDC revealed that Samsung alone accounts for 22.3% of the overall tablet market as of Q1 2014.
The Korea-based company is also crushing the smartphone space, according to recent statistics from comScore which indicate that Samsung smartphones accounted for 27.8% of the overall smartphone market as of May 2014.
But Dell isn't threatened by these statistics.
"What happened in phones may not dictate success in tablets," Schmoock said.