The New Microsoft Tablet: What to Know
#14 At Least It Isn't the Last...
MS might be a couple of years behind Apple in tablets, but it's still ahead of Google ... and that's a pretty good accomplishment. Certainly better than last.
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Welcome Surface Tablet. Really.
Recently, Microsoft introduced it's tablet computer, the Surface. How important was the introduction? Steve Ballmer, MS's CEO headlined the event and this is the first time he's been on the public stage in months and months. From the initial look-see, Microsoft has a long way to go before it can close the gap on Apple, but Microsoft tends to take the long very on this issues. Here's our wrap up of the new product's hits and misses.
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At Least It Isn't the Last...
MS might be a couple of years behind Apple in tablets, but it's still ahead of Google ... and that's a pretty good accomplishment. Certainly better than last.
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Making a Great Technology Much Smaller and Less Than Average
The Surface tablet is actually a dramatic size reduction of a product Microsoft and Samsung started shipping last December called the Surface 2.0 multi-touch tables. At 40 inches and using higher resolution technology, the table was straight out of a science fiction movie.
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Two Cameras
The Surface tablet apes the iPad with forward and rear facing cameras. This seems to be sticking with Microsoft's strategy: If they can't innovate, they might as well emulate.
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Kickstand?
The Surface tablet comes with a hinged piece of plastic on it's back. Flip it out, and it becomes a stand for the tablet. What concerns us is how many reviewers are emphasizing what a great innovation this is over the iPad. Really? Is this really the best thing to say about it? Read what PC World writes: "The Surface tablet's integrated kickstand is sheer brilliance, and it felt sturdily designed when I lifted it up and held the prototype tablet by its kickstand." To call a hinged piece of plastic "sheer brilliance" seems like a bit of a stretch.
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Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
Microsoft seems to be digging deeply into their bag of tricks for this product announcement. This is the time of year when retailers are making commitments about what type and how much inventory they'll have for the holiday season. So, even though Microsoft didn't announce a price or a date for availability, it announced the product. Doing so, gives the retail channel reason to pause and consider if it should stock any competing products for the winter season. --In other words, if you can compete on price and specs, you might as well try to win the propaganda war.
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Real USB Ports
Except on its actual computers, Apple has always preferred proprietary connections. The Surface tablet eschews this approach and has two USB ports. These open a new frontier of connectivity for the Surface tablet including printers, scanners, storage, etc.
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Integrated Keyboard
Unlike the iPad, the Surface tablet has an integrated keyboard that's built into its cover. This could be a very convenient feature -- if it works.
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Show Me The Money!
There was one Really Big Gap in yesterday's announcement: Price. Come on, people. How are we supposed to evaluate the value of this product if we don't know whether it's $200 less expensive than the iPad or $200 above? Lame.
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Snuggling v. Propping
Apple left a lot of room for third--party accessory companies that added functionality such as propping the iPad up, adding keyboard, etc. Microsoft decided it wanted all this potential revenue for it self by designing Surface with a built in kickstand and magnetite cover doubling as a keyboard.
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Geo-Political Issues
Since 1977 or so, Apple hasn't made an bones about the fact it deeply believes that the hardware and OS and applications need to fit together into a deeply intertwined experience. Microsoft, well, it has tended to resist making any hardware at all except as a proof of concept meant to lure third-parties into supporting a platform. The question becomes, will HP, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, etc. feel compelled to bring RT based products to market and compete against MS?
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Bigger is Better?
Hard to say. The MS Surface is a smidgen bigger than the Apple iPad. What no one knows right now is how much of a trade off consumers are willing to make between a bigger screen and a bigger schlep they have as the move from one place to another.
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'The Windows RT Operating System
Here's the recipe for Windows RT: 1. Take a full copy of Windows 8. 2. Re-code the OS to run on ARM processors instead of Intel. 3. Cut off the parts of the operating system that just don't belong on a tablet machine. 4. Think about building new elements of the OS that tablet users need. In other words, start with an elephant and cut it down to a Springer Spaniel. We can fairly describe this as the Frankenstein approach instead of the pure, custom OS that Apple grew from the ground up. Maybe this will be the first time it's ever worked? Who knows. MS tried this with Windows CE. Remember CE? Not many people do.
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LTE? Cell? 4G? 3G? Hello?
One of the more difficult pills to swallow about the new MS Surface tablet is that there isn't an option for a cellular connection. Overall, we think WiFi is ubiquitous enough to cover most any situation. However, a real road warrior needs that cell connection.
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The Final Analysis
One the one hand, it's a bit unfair to compare the MS Surface Tablet to Apple's iPad because the iPad has such an impressive head start. Right now, there are more than a quarter million applications already available for it. Long term, we can't count MS out of the race. Their reputation is to plug away, year after year, until they might get it right, although that didn't work for the Zune. Overall, we avoid a 1.0 product because we just don't want to pay for the privilege of being a test pilot. It that's your business model, good luck with that.
