More Confusion Over Windows 8 Tablets

So, does the public want them? Depends on whom you ask, which shows why polling is worthless.

That soft chuckling you hear is Steve Jobs snickering in the afterlife.

Jobs famously refused to do any kind of surveying, market research or focus groups, arguing people didn't know what they want "until we give it to them." It was how he brought quantum leaps to a society that tended to prefer evolution to revolution.

He's being proven right again. A few months ago, there was a survey that said almost half of people asked wanted a Windows 8 tablet. Fast forward and we get the other side of the coin: a survey by the research firm Chetan Sharma finds minimal interest in a Windows 8 tablet.

Chetan Sharma made its predictions for the wireless industry in 2012 and beyond and projected Windows 8 to capture just 8% of the tablet market in unit sales, while the iPad and Android will claim 45% and 44%, respectively.

The company adds the caveat that this is a prediction for 2012 and with Windows 8 coming late in the year, the best it's going to manage is "a dent."

Aside from the Jobs maxim that consumers don't know what they want until they get it, this also reflects the riskiness of making a prediction too far in advance. Microsoft has not set a release date for Windows 8. The industry is guessing and speculating on a fall 2012 release.

We have to assume Windows 8 will ship on time for the Sharma prediction to be accurate. We can't have any supply chain disruptions (hello, Thailand), the hardware has to be there, and the economy has to be in better shape than it is now.

Any wonder why I did not make a list of predictions for 2012 like a lot of other columnists did?

Surveys are tricky things. The ultimate survey comes when you release the product to the public. Until then, it's probably best to do what Apple does and make the best product you can. On this, I have little doubt in Steve Sinofsky and his ability to deliver a solid Windows 8 when he intends it to be done. He's notoriously punctual.

And word from CES is that the Windows tablets have matured incredibly well since we first saw Windows 8 on a tablet at BUILD last September. The beta is about a month away. We'll get a better impression then.

The findings in the Chetan Sharma survey come from responses from about 150 mobile industry professionals. Among other things, they voted the late Steve Jobs as the "mobile person of the year." Amazon's Jeff Bezos came in second, and Angry Birds came in third. I'm not kidding.

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• Windows 8