Btw, I don’t have an issue with M$ getting into the tablet hardware business and neither should the OEMs. This move allows M$ to specify a baseline for quality and functionality for these devices. OEMs can decide to develop devices that are above or below the Microsoft Surface specs. Look at the new Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2. They will ship a Windows 8 Pro Tablet in October that should price at around $500:
http://www.windowstablettv.com/news/627-lenovo-thinkpad-tablet-2-to-ship-late-october-2012/

The typo (a Freudian slip if there ever was one) of “desert” for “dessert” speaks volumes. “Thanks for carrying the royal we this far, but should we get separated you’re all on your own”.

I couldn’t understand why Microsoft made such a vacuous announcement, but after Google’s Nexus 7 event I now know. They needed to be seen as part of the game, even if they are still on the bus on the way to arena. The challenges to effectively compete were already significant, but whether anyone can win after starting in the second quarter is doubtful.

FWIW, I truly, deeply miss Steve Jobs. I can hear him laughing.

I appreciate you sharing this blog post. Cool….

People are so messed up with their arguments. Here are some of my initial (pre)observations.

1. It has not been shown, confirmed or denied that this is capable of portrait form. It is only being shown with the touted kickstand in landscape. IF it can not do portrait that is a HUGE MINUS (in my opinion).

2. IF it is priced as a higher end product (which is the current guessing) then what makes it attractive against a more robust and powerful Ultrabook. The cool factor?

3. IF it is WIFI only and point 2 also applies, why am I buying this again? If it is WIFI only, I think this is a huge MINUS regardless.

4. Keyboard and mouse are legacy. This is not a viable selling feature to me. Why do I say that? Simple. When I meet with Teachers all over I say the same thing about ALL technology. Our older generation has to ADAPT to all of this new technology and many find it difficult to break with old paradigms and ways of doing things. The younger generation grows up IMMERSED in the new methods and functions and in most cases out perform the old way of doing things. I can show you scores of kids with iPads/iPhones/Android touch devices that can out type secretaries on keyboards. (Just a general example.)

5. The confusion is already in full swing as to IF this is a replacement for a laptop or desktop or….

Confusion is NOT a good thing in any marketplace, let alone before you have released the product.

6. Apple has done fairly well at not releasing products without first having content for that. The Surface Pro should obviously be OK with millions of software potentially available (not good software just lots), as long is it is all compatible with Windows 8.

The Surface RT? Well, if it has trouble with existing software then this could just add to the confusion. If developers have to write 2 versions of their software I would say that this is total fragmentation from the get-go and not helping their cause. All the people arguing about how Windows 8 is superior because it is a full integration across all devices just got egg all over their faces.

7. Microsoft did this just to light a fire under the OEM’s collective A#$es. I find this utterly ridiculous. If MS creates a success with this do you seriously think they will STOP making profits just to appease OEMs and let them take over? If you think that I have a bridge I would like to sell you.

Time will obviously tell and until then we are all just spinning the wheels.

The example of this might well be the screen resolution issue. Microsoft has announced as-yet-curious automatic scaling for resolutions, leading to the question of what screen resolution will work. Software designers (and the graphics architects) might not yet know what their targets are, because the hardware is up in the air. My favorite example of this was the Moto Xoom, which used an earlier version of the nVidia Tegra chip rumored for the ARM Surface: that chip was announced as designed with Flash performance in mind. And yet, months after the Xoom was ready, Flash software was not available; when it was finally included it was reviewed as buggy, utterly dooming the Xoom as incompetent. A huge product failure due to integration problems between two leading software shops and two leading hardware outfits.
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See Theory of The Firm: when arms-length contracts are inadequate, you put up with the lack of transparency of divisions whose P&L can’t be evaluated well. Until Microsoft can get on top of the rate of change in technology — which it hasn’t done since 2007 or so — they’ll pretty much NEED to be integrated to compete.

I really HATE the stance Job took with the pen input. He’s not an artist, so he’ll never know how much we need it. And the silver/white/black casing is dull and stupid. Is color that hard to offer?

An example: the magnesium case. Except it isn’t a magnesium case, it’s a magnesium-coated case (“vapor deposited”, aka an evaporated film over an unspecified but obviously more cost effective substrate). So, the appearance of being some remarkable new material engineering, but only skin-deep.

Microsoft needs to stop the surface madness
http://www.informationweek.com/byte/commentary/personal-tech/tablets/240002530

Instead, calling it the PC would help Microsoft two ways – one, it can confuse analysts while calculating market share of Surface – Microsoft is going to club the sales of Surface with the rest of the PC and so analysts can never tell if Apple is still winning in the tablet industry or not. Secondly, Microsoft will be able to stick to their stand that laptops and tablets are two variants of the same device and not different markets as Apple would like us to believe.

And obviously, such invitation wouldn’t be enough without the implied threat : if you are not ready, we’ll go by ourselves.

For this reader, not being able to zoom the column literally meant not being able to read it unless there was a pc/mac available.

Most well designed websites offer their readers choice between viewing formats. Is this not a major site design weakness and liability — please address it.

This is Microsoft’s problem to fix, they are going about it in a way which doesn’t inspire much trust.

• Both tablets are slim and light: 9.3 mm/676 grams for the consumer model, 13.5 mm/903 grams for enterprise. (That’s .37”/1.5 lbs, .53”/2 lbs, imperial.)

Bigger, less resolution, less battery life hardly competitive
Surface RT 9.3 mm iPad 9.5mm
Surface RT 676 grams iPad 652 grams
Surface x86 903 grams iPad 652 grams / 11″ Macbook Air 108 grams
Surface x86 13.5 mm iPad 9.5mm / 11″ Macbook Air 3 – 17 mm

So the x86 with keyboard has to be way less dollars than the Air!

And Magnesium is very brittle and much weaker than Aluminum of the same size, a very thin Magnesium case will be very fragile.

Seems to have a number of issues that seems designed by committee.

Brand name OSes are a fading concept. End of the day, I do not need to know what flavor of embedded RTOS is running inside my BluRay player, Smart TV or washing machine. All I care is that it comes bundled as an integrated whole and the system updates seamlessly without my active involvement.

In time to come, I wouldn’t care what flavor of OS is driving my compute appliance of choice either. Microsoft just woke up to the fact that they golden goose (the Windows and Office franchise) is going to be disrupted and killed, and are therefore borrowing liberally from the Apple business model (build more stores, invest in consumer “experiences”, vertically integrated hardware, slowly turn Microsoft into a cool consumer digital lifestyle brand, etc)

A laptop screen isn’t detachable nor does it have a touchscreen.