Before the year ends, I would like to take time to write about what I think the best IT product of the year was. Last year I limited myself to gadgets and usually it’s either a phone or a tablet so I’m going to widen my scope this year.
Just a few guidelines, the Pinoy Tech Blog IT Product of 2012 should be:
- It should be officially introduced in our local market this year. No gray market stuff.
- It’s something that a lot of people can use.
- Being innovative is not really a requirement but it’s a plus
- It should make an impact in its field, not really in terms of market share but on how people adapt to it and companies react to it”¦ an influencer if you will.
I asked this question over at Facebook and although the runaway winner is boring to write about, I have to agree with the few respondents who took time to share their thoughts.
But before I reveal our top IT Product of the Year, I want to share a couple of runner-ups who can easily take the crown as our winner.
I was about to say iPad mini because it was a big step for Apple to finally admit that they need to make a smaller version of the iPad to compete with Android. But then again, it’s just the same old iPad.
Then there’s also the Google Nexus 7, the Android tablet done right, or should I say priced right. Quad-core 7-inch tablet with a high-def screen at an inexpensive price, I think the Nexus 7 pushed Apple to strongly consider the 7-inch tablet market.
So that brings us to our Top IT Product of 2012, Microsoft’s Windows 8.
Before you begin bashing this article by saying that you prefer Windows 7 than 8, allow me to explain. Windows 8 is the start of something special for Microsoft. From Windows 3.1 up to Windows 7, we always associate the brand to PCs and laptops. With Windows 8, Microsoft was able to seamlessly transition themselves from the PC to MIDs and to mobile which further expands and at the same time unify their ecosystem.
Windows 8 also spawned quite a number of innovative laptops. We’ve seen funky laptop designs in the past few months way more than we did in the past decade. It also legitimizes the OS as a viable contender to the tablet space. Although not immediately, we’ll see it creep into Android’s and iOS’ tablet market share in the coming years.
Windows 8 adoption is not yet high as a lot of people feel more comfortable with the classic UI but it’s a forward-looking OS. As we see more touchscreen notebooks become affordable in the future, we’ll also see Windows 8 become the norm rather than the exception.
So again, Windows 8 is Pinoy Tech Blog’s Top IT Product of 2012. What’s your choice?
