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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: Forget the iPad, Surface Is the Tablet People Want
zacharye writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer undoubtedly knows that Apple has sold more than 100 million iPad tablets at this point, but according to the outspoken executive, that's not the tablet people really want. While speaking with CNBC, Ballmer said no company has built a tablet he believes customers want. 'You can go through the products from all those guys and none of them has a product that you can really use. Not Apple. Not Google. Not Amazon. Nobody has a product that lets you work and play that can be your tablet and your PC. Not at any price point,' he says."
If not, then don't bother me until it does. If I want a crayon-level interface, I'll go with the one that has a bazillion apps for all my media content consuming needs. When a really useful, 256+ pressure level, pen-accurate input with palm/heel rejection gets here, then I'll consider switching.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I can't remotely log in to my Linux machines and do programming on my iPad. I can't create presentations on it. I can't do photo editing or drawing. I can write papers for grad school.
No. wait. I can do all of those thing on my 1st gen iPad.
Nevermind.
It will be interesting to see if they actually get their sh1t together for "surface 2" or whatever they will call it. Right now Microsoft seems to be firmly in the middle of a "crap nobody wants" cycle with Windows 8 and Surface. And with Surface, I see some potential in the concept, they just fumbled the delivery badly.
wooooosh.
I believe the term for that comment is 'sarcasm' not shill. Tone doesn't translate over text well, but the user's word uses made it clear - that was definitely sarcasm.
That being said, I'll take a NON-RT tablet over anything out there at the moment. Compared to the RT tablets, you're better off with an iPad, and if you are better off with an iPad, you might as well get one of the better Androids out there. The non-RTs however, can use normal Windows software, which means they don't have the walled garden restriction of the iPad or RT. Mind you, they are x86, so battery life and/or weight probably are a bit sucky.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
True, but that doesn't mean there isn't the possibility that Ballmer is right.
They probably looked at people who *aren't* buying iPads, and saying "what do you want?" and the answer was a highly portable keyboard, and regular desktop programs. The latter isn't an issue for the ipad exactly, and Microsoft hasn't pulled a great job by forking x86 and ARM and all that stuff, but I can see the argument that a laptop that easily doubles as a slate is more appealing than a slate by itself (to use the MS parlance of slate rather than tablet).
ANd the thing is, this isn't really news that MS feels this way. They've been pushing convertible tablets for years, I've had several over the last 7 or 8 years, surface is like that, only adopting a slate form factor.
That doesn't mean any of this will actually sell well, or that their attempt at a solution is a good idea. But this is certainly the same line of thinking that MS has been pushing since the Bill Gates days.
And by tablet you mean laptop. In both cost and size.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Contrary to popular opinion, and for that matter to MS marketing, the walled garden on RT is a myth. Sideloading apps is fully possible (built into the OS and free to enable) so it's not really any more "walled" than Android in that respect.
Additionally, people have already figured out how to bypass the desktop app restriction, so you aren't even limited to just "Metro"-style apps from third parties either. That one *is* unofficial, so it's possible Microsoft may patch it out, but for now you can do pretty much anything you like with RT.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
God I hate consumers like you. Maybe this is just because I was once unfortunate enough to work in retail, but why do people think that "I didn't like it" is a valid reason to return something they've purchased? Even if it's part of the store's return policy and all, I would never use a return policy to test drive new toys. It really takes some warped sense of entitlement to have that attitude. It actually seems unethical to me to demand money back for a product that functions as advertised.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."