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With the Surface Pro, Microsoft Is Trying To Recreate the PC Market
An anonymous reader writes "An opinion piece at ReadWriteWeb makes an interesting suggestion: Microsoft's efforts in the tablet market aren't aimed at competing with the iPad or any of the Android tablets, but rather inventing a new facet of the PC market — one Microsoft alone is targeting. Quoting: 'Microsoft wants everyone to think the Surface Pro 3 is a tablet, but its pricing gives the game away. Microsoft wants to recreate the lucrative PC market that made the company billions of dollars by repackaging a PC into tablet clothing and then hammering away at the Surface product line until everybody believes that PCs never really went anywhere, they just got a touchscreen and a cellular connection.' This is also supported by the lack of a smaller Surface tablet, which many analysts were predicting before this week's press conference. Microsoft is clearly not pursuing the tablet-for-everyone approach, but instead focusing on users who want productivity out of their mobile computing device. The Surface Pros are expensive, but Microsoft is hoping people will balance that cost against the cost of a work laptop plus a personal tablet."
To Microsoft, everything is a PC which is going to run Windows and Office.
They've never really been able to see past that.
My personal desktop has never had Office (or open Office, or any office suite on it), because for personal purposes, I have simply never needed one. I use my tablet for infotainment and looking up stuff on the web when I travel. I don't use it for heavy work.
I'm not sure that most people want what Microsoft thinks is the tablet market. In fact, given the sheer number of less-powerful tablets out there that people are happily using.
Microsoft has ever really predicted much in the way of new markets or products, or led the way in innovation. They have mostly stuck with their tried and true "all roads lead to Office".
If I wanted a laptop, I'd buy one. I'm not convinced that what they're selling is what most people are looking for.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They're a fantastic business machine. They really are.
But at the same time, Microsoft is losing a whole generation of users who are learning that they don't need Microsoft. I would argue that a lot of Apple's success today stems from the fact that they were the dominant machine in schools 30 years ago.
Kids today are running around with 7" tablets. Sure, they're infotainment, but they do everything on those tablets. Web, Skype, Netflix, they type up homework, and of course, play games. It is a major strategic mistake to ignore the 7" tablet market.
duh.
MS is leading the way to a place where you carry you computer all the time and just drop it into a cradle when you need a bigger screen.
Something that works for well over 80% of the populace.
I'm not a fan, but the iPad would be horrible to do that with. With it's in ability to shop more then 1 window at a time.
And I own an iPad, and I like it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I bought a Surface 2 (RT, not Pro), and I've been very pleasantly surprised at just how good a work device it is.
My uses, as an IT manager:
note taking in meetings with OneNote
reviewing documents (Word/Excel/PDF)
presenting (PowerPoint)
email (Outlook or Mail)
web browsing
cloud storage (OneDrive)
Remote Desktop (Citrix Reciever)
entertainment on airplanes: video, ebooks
Surface 2 does all of these well. Better than the iPad I had previously for the pure-work tasks, albeit somewhat worse for the 'entertainment' tasks. Since my focus for this device is work, I've really enjoyed it.
I think I'd like the SP3 even more, because I'd get all of the above plus Visio, although I'd have to check out the size/weight for myself.
If what you want is more 80% entertainment / 20% business, or if you are in a business where MS Office/Exchange/etc. are not critical, the iPad is hands-down better, but I think that for many business-types, Surface deserves a look.
Personally, the Asus Transformer got 90% of the way to what I was looking for back in the twentieth century. Microsoft's latest offering appears to go the last 10%. I'm a Linux geek personally, but I do need to be able to run MS-Office compatible software on whatever platform I use. Microsoft's pitch -- "runs all your favorite MS software on your device of choice" is actually a powerful incentive for marketing to professionals. If they are addressing the perceived shortcomings of the tablet form factor, I suspect they may well be onto something.
Not planning on ditching my Android devices anytime soon, nor installing Windows on my Linux PC's - but I can sure see a lot of professionals doing so just for the ability to more or less seamlessly integrate their mobile devices with organization infrastructure. I may not like MS software, but nothing integrates with a Windows-based infrastructure like MS-Windows - hardware platform notwithstanding.