Apple’s iPad tablet computer, widely credited with sparking a global trend and creating a new category of device, has been criticised by senior figures at Dell and Microsoft. Speaking to CIO Australia, Sydney, Dell’s global head of marketing for large enterprises and public organisations, Andy Lark, said that Google’s Android would beat the iPad in the lucrative business market.

“I couldn’t be happier that Apple has created a market and built up enthusiasm but longer term, open, capable and affordable will win, not closed, high price and proprietary,” Lark said. “[Apple has] done a really nice job, they’ve got a great product, but the challenge they’ve got is that already Android is outpacing them.

“Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island. It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft's global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie told a lunch held in Sydney by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), that he did not know whether tablets such as the iPad would "remain with us or not".

Mundie said he believed the smartphone would become more crucial, and that computing would be more comprehensively integrated into the living environment. Although Windows-based tablets have been released, the devices have not met with widespread success because the operating system is not designed to touchscreen interaction.

Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 8 operating system, however, along with the company’s ‘Surface’ technology, indicates that they are looking to emulate the technologies popularised by Apple.