Finally Good News for Microsoft's Surface: 200M Information Workers Want it Instead of the iPad

The iPad has been experiencing some lower-than-usual market shares, but at slightly lower than 50 percent it is still more than any other company manufacturing tablets. Microsoft introduced the Surface hoping it would challenge the iPad, but it has been a disappointing effort so far.

Its saving grace might be the millions of enterprise office workers around the world who rely on Microsoft for many of their applications.

A new report by Forrester Research, entitled “2013 Mobile Workforce Adoption Trends,” sees some 200 million information workers wanting the Microsoft tablet over the iPad, with a 32- to 26-percent margin.

A survey was conducted from 10,000 enterprise employees in 16 countries around the world for mobile devices, including phones, tablets, and the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies companies are putting in place regarding these devices.

The advantage Microsoft enjoys can be directly attributed to the 615 million people who will be information workers in 2013. A large portion of enterprise users have Microsoft products in their organization, and having a tablet made by Microsoft could make things easier compatibility-wise.

Additionally, the introduction of the new Surface Pro, some see as basically a laptop, will be able to run programs like Microsoft Office and other full applications like Photoshop, because it has a full Intel Core i5 processor instead of the ARM processor used by other tablets.

The survey, however, was not kind to the Windows Phone, which was on the losing end compared to the iPhone, with a 33-percent to 10-percent disadvantage.

There is no guarantee the projection will translate into actual sales, but it’s great news for Microsoft and its Surface tablet, which has been taking a beating for some time now. The Surface Pro is seen as a device most power users will want to have instead of a laptop. It performs well compared to other laptops and desktops without the bulk of those devices.

The one glaring issue the device has is the price and the battery life, but considering the power of the processor and the fact that is replacing a tablet, laptop and a desktop, most power users will take it.