Garter Research, a firm specializing in the consumer electronics industry, released new projects for tablet sales through 2016. The report projects Apple (News - Alert) will remain the largest manufacturer of tablet mobile computing devices for at least the next five years, with Android gaining substantial ground. Microsoft is also projected to gain a foothold with its Windows 8 Operating System, due for release this summer.
Apple's iPad all but created the tablet PC market upon its release. Projected sales for the device for 2012 are upwards of 73 million devices. The industry as a whole is projected to grow with iPad sales in 2016, estimated at a staggering 167 million devices. The most legitimate competitor to the iPad has been Amazon's eReader/tablet hybrid device, the Kindle Fire.
The Fire boasts a price at a fraction of the iPad, and is stealing customers disinterested in Apple’s product and seek a more mobile solution for consuming digital media. Integration with the Amazon digital content marketplace is the real win for Amazon, as digital content sales continue to grow for the converted book mogul.
Microsoft, which lags far behind both Android (News - Alert) and Apple in all forms of mobile computing, is poised to launch its newest operating system, Windows 8, at some point this summer. The Operating System reportedly applies to personal computers, tablets and mobile phones. The unification of software across many devices will be enticing to many corporate buyers who have been Microsoft's (News - Alert) most loyal customers for the past two decades. According to Garter Research, however, neither the growth in sales of the Kindle Fire nor the launch of Microsoft's unified operating system platform will be enough to rival Apple's dominance in the tablet market.