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The $200 Windows 8 tablet will change everything

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If MS-DOS, Windows, Android, the IBM PC, $99 TouchPad, and $200 Kindle Fire have taught us anything about technology, it's that being cheaper — if not better — than the competition is one of the fastest and surest routes to success.

That $400 Dell laptop might not be as quick or pretty as a $1,200 MacBook, but if you're a parent on a budget, or large corporation with more significant concerns than a aluminium unibody, you go for the Dell. Likewise, if you've a complete newbie — if you're buying your first car, saucepan, camera, or Leatherman multitool — you don't go in at the top; you buy something in the middle or at the bottom.

At this point there's always a naysayer that points at the massive success of the (relatively expensive) iPad, but the sad truth is that — after almost two years — its only competitor is the Kindle Fire, and comparing the iPad to the Fire is like comparing an Alienware laptop to a Samsung netbook; they're not even in the same league, hardware-wise. The iPad has also only sold tens of millions, as opposed to the hundreds of millions of laptops and desktops that sell every year.

Netbook vs. MacBook Air... hrm... choices choices...

We're getting sidetracked, though: The point is, given two or more devices with roughly the same feature set, there will always be a large number of consumers and businesses that will opt for the cheaper version. Which leads us neatly onto Microsoft Windows and its complete domination of home and office markets.

Now, it's not fair to say that Microsoft's success is entirely down to a lower cost of ownership. There are IT admins who would eat their own hands if you asked them to support Mac OS X devices on their network, for example. Microsoft's enterprise stack is second to none. But again, when faced with buying a round of thin-and-lights for your executive and traveling employees, do you pick the $300 Windows netbook or $1000 MacBook Air? Or better yet, how about a $200 Windows 8 tablet? Made by Nokia, perhaps?

You know it's coming: By this time next year, thanks to Moore's law, there should be a 10-inch Windows 8 tablet on the market for $200. It won't have an amazing resolution — 1366×768, just enough to enable split-screen Metro apps — and it won't have oodles of RAM or flash storage, but it's a brand new Windows computer for $200. To whet your appetite yet further, you might even get an x86 Windows tablet for $200. Windows 8, with its full support for ARM, marks the beginning of the end of the Wintel Era. Intel, if it wants to keep its near-complete ownership of the Windows market, will have to very aggressive with its 32nm tablet-oriented Clover Trail Atom pricing if it wants to compete in the cut-and-thrust world of ARM SoCs.

Windows 8 Samsung tablet in docking station A world with $200 Windows tablets would be completely insane. Remember, these tablets will be Windows PCs; you can still plug in a keyboard and mouse (or external monitor or optical drive, or…) Anything you do on your computer now, you'll be able to do on this cheap-as-chips tablet. Netbooks will simply roll over and die. Cheaper laptops, too, would struggle to coexist, and even expensive ultrabooks and MacBooks might lose market share to a tablet PC. After all, why buy (and carry around!) an iPad and a laptop when you can keep a $50 docking station at the office and use a Windows 8 tablet everywhere.

Again, these are $200 Windows PCs, but in a tablet form factor. IT admins are cooing with delight at the thought: Desktops, laptops, netbooks, and thin clients could all be done away with and replaced with a tablet — a tablet, that because it's still inherently Windows, fits perfectly into the Server/Exchange stack. If you have a Windows-based media center at home, you can replace it with this tablet. If you're looking for a cheap first computer for Little Timmy, look no further than a $200 Windows tablet. Schools, instead of maintaining a computer lab and equipping your kids with iPads, think what it would be like if every kid simply had their own $200 Windows tablet that could be whipped out when needed.

Where does Android and iOS fit into this up-ended worldview? On smartphones only — but even there, Windows Phone 7 isn't down and out yet. Who knows, maybe the $200 Windows 8 PC, if it seamlessly bonds with Windows Phone 7, will do exactly what the iPod did for Apple's ailing Mac computers. There's even some tantalizing hints that Windows 8 could be used as a smartphone OS, but let's not go down that path just yet.

To look at it another way, Windows 8 will forcibly converge tablets and PCs. Any tablet that can't do as much as a Windows 8 slate will look staid in comparison. If you could choose between a fairly cheap, plasticky $200 Windows 8 tablet that can do just about anything, or a beautiful, glorified e-book reader for $300, which would you choose? Which would your business choose? We'll never know if it was intentional, but Microsoft really could take it all with Windows 8.

[Image credit: IT Chuiko]