Market Fundamentals

Dmitry Fadeyev:

If this is the view of the market that Microsoft subscribe[s] to, then Windows 8 is the answer to that...It’s an OS that assumes that most computing will be done on devices that resemble powerful tablets with detachable keyboards, not on the laptops and the desktops of today. It’s an OS that tries to serve everyone at once, to cover all use cases and all markets....

But this only holds if the original premise is correct, that the tablet is the evolution of the laptop, and I just don’t think that’s right. Where the division lies is not a[t] the desktop and the mobile level, or between the laptop and the tablet, but between professional use (i.e. content creation), and light/entertainment use (i.e content consumption). While tablets are not necessarily used purely for content consumption, their limitations (small screen size and lack of a hardware keyboard) mean that this will always be their main use.

This is what Apple has demonstrated an uncanny understanding of since 2007, and it's why they're making money hand over fist.

Coca-Cola's holiday commercial

For a few seconds I thought this was a commercial for the Surface. Add some gratuitous "clicking-in" footage and I'm sure it could be.

Space on RT

Justin Rubio:

Microsoft has revealed exactly how much free space new Surface owners are left with after taking into account Windows RT and system-related files. For the 32GB version of the new tablet, users have access to only 16GB of storage, with the remaining half taken up by Windows recovery tools, Windows RT, Microsoft Office, and built-in apps.

What's most amazing about this to me is that this is the stripped-down version of Windows designed exclusively for tablets. How unreal will the space requirements for Windows for Surface Pro be!?

Tim Cook on Compromise

Microsoft was chanting the mantra of "No Compromises" at it's Surface Launch Event. But that's just delusory nonsense. Even Tim Cook, whose company has been leading the charge in almost every profitable & popular emerging area of personal computing said (via Joanna Stern):

One of the toughest things you do is make hard tradeoffs and decide what a product should be, and we’ve done that with the iPad.

It's not about 'no compromise' it's about the right compromise.

Ballmer's Reality Distortion Field

Steve Ballmer, in reference to the tablet market (via CNBC & The Macalope):

I don't think anyone has done a product that I see customers wanting.

There's only two possible things happening here. Either Ballmer knows he's lying through his teeth, or he doesn't. Unfortunately both of these alternatives still make him look like, well, an idiot. If I were Ballmer and had some high-end talent heading to the free agency pool soon, I'd watch my back.

Option 1: Ballmer knows he's lying through his teeth. He's trying to play down (read: ignore) the obscene success of the iPad as irrelevant (sounds familiar) in order to make the Surface look like the better option. But this doesn't make the Surface look better, it makes Steve Ballmer look out of touch with reality. And worse, it makes Microsoft look like they have not a single clue what people want. Microsoft isn't the biggest player in the game anymore. And Ballmer needs to realize it. Perhaps more importantly he needs to know that we realize it.

Acknowledge that Microsoft hasn't had a compelling product in this space. Acknowledge that you're targeting it. Show us what you have, tell us what it costs, tell us when it will ship, and tell us why it's better.

Option 2: Ballmer doesn't know he's lying. If this is the case, then Steve Ballmer has his own Reality Distortion Field.

Everyone Happy All The Time

Microsoft's big push behind Windows 8 (and its new tablet, the Surface) has been all about the promise of “no compromise”. Microsoft wants its offering to be all things to all people. But to anyone who thinks critically about anything, ever, that's just plain stupid. Design is all about compromise. It's about choosing what battles to fight and what battles to cede.

The 11" MacBook Air. If you want a laptop that compact and portable, the screen won't be very large. The battery life won't be as good. The thermal envelope doesn't support jamming a ton of processing power in it. Why? Because those are the things that need to be sacrificed at the altar of portability.

The 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display has the opposite problem. It has a large (and gorgeous) display, better battery life, and scads of horsepower. But it's much bigger and much heavier than the 11" Air.

The iPad (4) is bigger, thicker, and heavier than the iPad Mini, but those are the tradeoffs that had to be made to keep the battery life the same and still run the retina display/A6X processor.

Of course, despite all the high-minded talk, this is also true of the Surface (from Matt Honan):

Microsoft’s new tablet is an altogether curious device. It’s something completely new and different. It is, in some ways, better than an iPad. In some ways, worse. It’s brilliant, and yet it can be puzzling as well. Confoundingly so at times. It’s a tablet of both compromises and confusion. It is a true hybrid — neither fully a desktop nor mobile device. That’s reflected in all sorts of ways. It is Wi-Fi only, but won’t run traditional Windows applications. It has a full-featured keyboard and runs Microsoft Office — but it’s certainly meant to be touched and swiped and tapped.

It’s different.

And of course — but again, not unexpectedly — Windows 8 runs into similar compromises (from Tom Warren):

Microsoft has made the decision to remove a number of features from its Office 2013 RT release to ensure battery life and reliability are not impacted on tablet devices.

Some compromise is fine as long as we don't go overboard (remember netbooks?). Consumers understand compromise. Further, people in general understand compromise. We do it all the time in all aspects of our lives. Our electronics are no different. And Microsoft, I don't blame you for compromising; we all knew you had to do it. But please, please don't treat us like we're stupid.

That's one thing I won't compromise on.

Surface Price Surfaces

Alex Wilhelm reporting on the recent Microsoft Surface pricing discovery:

[T]he cheapest tablet is $1,001.

He then goes on to state the obvious:

Far too expensive.

This is exactly why stupid predictions should not be made about unshipped, unpriced, unspec'd products.

On the Surface Smart Cover

Citi analyst Walter Pritchard (via The Next Web:

At the meeting with MSFT Windows execs, we were able to try the Surface touch keyboard (we weren’t at LA launch) and also use it conjunction with new Office (RT- version). All works well. The keyboard is responsive and natural (same size as laptop keyboard), with only downside being there is only slight raised delineation between keys, meaning you have to look at your fingers while you type. With short words, we were able to type accurately, although longer words were more error-prone.

Touch-typists rejoice!

Bill Gates on Surface

Bill Gates (via CNET), interpreted:

I actually believe you can have the best of both worlds. You can have a rich ecosystem of manufacturers and you can have a few signature devices that show off, you know, wow, what's the difference between a tablet and a PC.

Translation: Our OEMs blew it. We can do better, but I don't want to just come out and say that. But I kind of will anyway. In related news, you can have your cake and eat it too.

You don't have to make a compromise. You can have everything you like about a tablet and everything you like about a PC all in one device. And so that should change the way people look at things.

Translation: Yes, we've been trying the same approach since 2002 and no, we do not see a problem with that. Also, we are courting Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis to join Steve Ballmer as co-co-co-CEOs.

There were a few things that could have been done differently to bring it (a Microsoft tablet) to critical mass...

Translation: We should have waited to see what Apple would do from the beginning. Than added a kickstand.

I'm sure Apple is terrified.

Microsoft's Illustrious History in Hardware

Austin Carr:

Before Microsoft unveiled the Surface tablet last week in Los Angeles, it unveiled the mouse. More specifically, the 1983 Microsoft Mouse, which CEO Steve Ballmer hailed as an example of the company’s 30-year history in hardware.

Carr then goes on to rave about the Arc Touch mouse and the new Surface (including an emotional attachment to the kickstand, apparently) and about the superior quality of Microsoft's hardware designs and implementations...

Nick Eaton in 2009:

[A] Game Informer survey of 5,000 readers found that the Xbox 360 has an astounding 54.2 percent failure rate. That means 54.2 percent of Xbox 360 consoles fail in one way or another.

That’s well above the reported failure rates of Sony’s PlayStation 3 (10.6 percent) and Nintendo’s Wii (6.8 percent).

I'm not saying Surface is bad, it might be awesome. I'll be interested to play with one when they are released. But when we glow about Microsoft's history in hardware let's not forget their most successful hardware device.

iPad is Dooooooomed

Doug Gross writing for CNN:

It's sacrilege to some Apple fanboys.

Six words in and this article is already stupid.Yes, I get it; Apple is actually a cult-like religion and those who use it's products merely brainwashed zombies who have a blind allegiance to Apple. It has nothing to do with the quality of the products and software. Nothing.

But when Microsoft unveiled the Surface tablet (actually a pair of them) Monday, the software company clearly had one ultimate goal: to make a tablet that's better than the iPad.

This is just about the only thing we agree on.

By most standards, Apple has crushed its tablet rivals that have tried to compete feature-for-feature. No single tablet running Google's Android system has gotten much traction (save the smaller, cheaper Kindle Fire from Amazon) and BlackBerry maker RIM's Playbook hit the market with a thud.

Yeah... the Kindle Fire and iPad are neck-and-neck.

And Microsoft's past attempts at building Apple-like gadgets -- witness the iPod-copying Zune -- have failed.

Okay, we agree on two things. Gross goes on to list five reasons the Surface may best the iPad. They are awesome. The first is the keyboard.

A frustration for many users of the iPad and other touchscreen devices is the keyboard. While it's possible to get somewhat proficient at tapping spots on a flat screen, most acknowledge it's impossible to get e-mail and other documents written as quickly as with physical keys.

Typing on a flat surface sounds like a real pain. What's Microsoft's solution, Doug?

The Surface keyboard will be part of its Touch Cover (...) with pressure-sensitive flat keys

Oh. Much better.Yes, there will be another keyboard cover with actual keys (and a trackpad) but neither has been tested yet. And Gross simply writes off all the 3-rd party iPad keyboards because they can be clunky.

Gross then goes on to quote some folks who love the keyboard. Farhad Manjoo starts out with, "If [the touch cover] works well" and ends with "If the Surface ships with the keyboard -- and if Microsoft markets the device as a tablet that will let you get some work done -- it could be a big hit." If, if, if, and could. A glowing preview if ever I've heard one.

Gross then goes on to say the Surface is bigger and that's what makes it better. The screen is larger (though widescreen, so I'm not sold on portrait mode - which Microsoft doesn't seem to want us to use anyway), the machine is heavier, and, admittidly, thinner. But Microsoft must have breathed a sigh of relief when the new iPad come out, because it is thicker and heavier than iPad 2 (with which Surface was competing during it's development).

Something I found especially fun was this bit:

[I]t's optimized to have essentially the same dimensions as a movie screen: So, farewell black bars when watching video.

I don't know how people use their iPads, but I do not watch movies on mine unless I'm somewhere without a TV and have lots of time to kill. Older full-screen content (which I watch a lot of) will still have black bars, and academy aspect ratio movies (think Lord of the Rings) will still have black bars. Whatever. I just cannot understand why every screen is designed to have the same aspect ratio as movies. Are people really watching that much video content on their iPads?

Next up is power. The surface will be much more powerful than the iPad, apparently. Even though no one's used it. He says:

Especially with the Windows 8 Pro model

Are you kidding me? This implies that obviously the Surface RT will be more powerful, but the Surface Pro will be especially powerful besting the iPad to the point of embarassment. This strikes me as awfully presumptious. Gross doesn't take into account the CPU requirements of the OS running on the tablet. Believing, based on nothing, that Microsoft's OS can run as power-effeciently as iOS is very optimistic. Anyhow, Gross continues:

The Windows Pro model will run on an i5 Intel processor

And I'm sure it will get iPad's 10 hour battery life. I'd even say that the Surface pro won't get battery life as good as the 11" MacBook Air. Less than 5 hours. My personal guess? Surface for Windows 8 Pro will get around 3 hours on a charge.

Gross then extolls the virtues of the USB port:

[The USB] ports open up the possibility of extra storage, printing and other external capabilities that should be easier and quicker than the workarounds iPad users need involving cloud storage, Wi-Fi connections and the like.

So... just grab your Surface, fold the kickstand out, slap on the keyboard, connect a USB hub and hook up to your printer, external HDD, and card reader. What? This sounds like a docked laptop to me. With Dropbox, AirPrint, and Apple's Camera Connection Kit I can do all that same stuff wirelessly. And isn't wireless and portable the point of tablet computers?

The final killer feature of Surface? Xbox SmartGlass... which has not yet been linked to the Surface by Microsoft itself. In fact, Gross is the only person who has even talked about this. So one of Surface's killer features isn't even a feature yet. Anyway, he says:

It will connect a smartphone or tablet with the Xbox, which in turn will be connected with the television. By connecting the devices, users can watch a movie on their television while getting bonus material on their tablet. They could also start enjoying a game or movie on the tablet, then transfer it to a TV -- or vice versa.

If only Apple had something that could do something like this...