200 Million People Want A Microsoft Windows Tablet And Not An iPad

Despite a lot of bad reviews for its new Surface Pro tablet, Microsoft hasn't lost the hearts of its true-blue fans, enterprise office workers.

Market researcher Forrester predicts that some 200 million people worldwide want a Windows tablet for their next work tablet. So it says in a new report titled "2013 Mobile Workforce Adoption Trends"

Forrester surveyed nearly 10,000 enterprise employees in 16 countries and found that 32 percent want a Windows tablet to use for work. This compares to 26 percent who want an iPad and 12 percent who want an Android tablet.

There isn't the same kind of love for Windows phones. 33 percent want an iPhone, compared to only 10 percent that want a Windows phone.

With that data, the researchers estimated worldwide demand:

"Forrester projects that globally, 615 million people will be information workers in 2013 ... Based on that forecast and the data on the desire for the next phone or tablet, we project that 208 million global information workers would like to use an iPhone for work, and 200 million global information workers would like to use a Microsoft Windows tablet for work."

So, despite the dismal early sales of Windows 8 devices, there's hope that Microsoft's core customers, enterprise users, will flock to its tablets eventually, if not its phones.

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