Microsoft Aims To Take On iPad In Health Care

When internist Nitin Patel called up Microsoft MSFT +0.15% in May to rave about its Surface Pro tablet, Dennis Schmuland, the company’s head of health strategy for U.S. Health & Life Sciences, was taken aback. “I was surprised, because he was so excited,” says Schmuland. “We didn’t solicit this.”

Microsoft is elated by Patel’s call. While physicians’ use of tablets is widespread—72% according to Manhattan Research, more than half of the nearly 3,000 physicians it surveyed, used Apple AAPL -0.9%’s iPad in the first quarter of 2013. Microsoft released Surface RT last year, and Surface Pro this past February. According to IDC, shipments of Surface amounted to 900,000 units in this year’s first quarter. It has a long way to catch up with the iPad, which commands nearly 40% of the tablet market. [...]