The images may make it look like a notebook, but Microsoft's new Surface
line is all about tablets. As the center of the computing industry
continues to shift from PC to mobile, Microsoft, maker of keyboards and
mice for three decades, is directly challenging Apple’s iPhone and iPad
dominance with the Surface sub-brand.
"Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen made a big bet — a bet
on software — but it was always clear that we had to push hardware in
ways that sometimes manufacturers hadn't envisioned," said Microsoft
CEO Steve Ballmer at Monday's unveiling. "We believe that any
intersection between human and machine can be made better when all
aspects, hardware and software, are working together."
“Microsoft is aiming at all of Apple‘s weak points in a very
strategic way that ultimately will increase competition in the tablet
market in a more significant way than any Android or Blackberry tablet
has. This will ultimately be good for businesses and consumers," writes Anthony Kosner for Forbes. “Which tablet did they decide to go with, one for gamers or for office workers? Both!”
CNET puts it more bluntly: “The tablet wars are no longer a two-horse race between Apple and Google.”
Microsoft borrowed a page from Apple’s playbook, introducing the
Surface tablet with fanfare shrouded in secrecy but promising a “major
Microsoft announcement,” the media (and the world) “will not want to
miss.”
The Surface tablet is about the same weight and thickness as an iPad,
runs a variation of Windows 8, has a 10.6-inch ClearType HD Display, a
built-in “kickstand” for propping, and a removable Touch Cover to be
used as an integrated keyboard with touch-sensing keys that become
inactive when the cover is closed. The surface of Surface? It uses
Corning's Gorilla Glass for the screen.
The PC tablet runs a yet-to-be released version of Windows 8 called
Windows RT, and in a significant strategic shift, is the first
commercial PC Microsoft has directly designed and sold. Technically
speaking, the first "Microsoft Surface" device, released in 2008, was a
large touchscreen computer for retailers and commercial customers.
Windows RT, available this fall in 32 and 64-gigabyte versions, runs
on microchips designed by ARM (ARMH), but a second version of Surface
will be designed with Intel chips for the fuller Windows 8 operating
system, available three months later in 64- and 128-GB versions.
“People want to create and consume,” stated Ballmer at the unveiling. “They want to work and they want to play.”
The official Surface microsite
says, “From touch to type, office to living room, from your screen to
the big screen, you can see more, share more, and do more with Surface.
Create, collaborate, and get stuff done with Office. Explore your world
with fast, fluid Windows 8 apps. Discover new music, movies, and games
in the Windows Store.”
The brand's hope is to attract a wideer swath of consumers to
Surface: Xbox gamers, betting that a large screen consumer tablet used
with SmartGlass will satisfy current customers and attract new ones;
businesses, who need a tablet with ‘ultrabook-like’ processing capacity,
(seven times faster than the iPad’s ARM chip), and the mobile market,
providing a lightweight device for portability and a multi-screen
alternative
“Microsoft thinks that the new tablet, which will also come with the
firm’s Office suite of productivity tools, is bound to appeal to
peripatetic business folk who want a tablet that can double as a PC
wherever they are. But there are several unknowns that will determine
the speed at which Surface ends up surfacing in homes and offices," the Economist notes.
Tellingly, the company "has yet to reveal exactly how much its new
tablets will cost, though it has hinted that prices will be in line with
those of the iPad and other tablets. More important, it needs to
convince consumers that there will be plenty of apps available for the
new device (the iPad now boasts more than 200,000 apps, according to
Apple).”
Analysts consider the release of the Surface tablet as “a referendum
on Microsoft’s partners. Microsoft felt they could not rely on others to
deliver on their vision for Windows 8 in mobile computing,” said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg to the New York Times.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment