Via The Loop
Over 800 pages if you are interested.
This is a great device. It is a new thing, in a new space, and likely to confuse many of Microsoft’s longtime customers. People will have problems with applications — especially when they encounter them online and are given an option by Internet Explorer to run them, only to discover this won’t work. But overall it’s quite good; certainly better than any full-size Android tablet on the market. And once the application ecosystem fleshes out, it’s a viable alternative to the iPad as well.
— Wired
“Likely to confuse longtime customers”? Even from nerd point of view the Surface is “Yeah, nice, but…”, I think from the point of businesses it will be more of a “Why?” and for home users it could be “What?”.
I doubt that anyone expects the Windows 8 and new Microsoft tablets to be great success rivaling the iPad. I think the success will be if it does not flop.
Anyway, Microsoft is looking in the face of falling profits down the road and the question is what it should do?
Via Daring Fireball
Granted, it is a preview and the real version should ship early 2013, but if it looks anything like this then Microsoft is crazy.
One comment from the guy doing the video made me laugh:
Obviously, you can see it’s not entirely optimized for a touch experience… but it is there.
Let me paraphrase that: Obviously, you will feel like throwing the thing against the wall in 5 seconds, but for some perverted reason it is there.
That’s what a disrupted company does.
Via @satai
Daring Fireball linked this video accompanying a review of Windows 8 by Michael Mace.
I agree with John and Michael in that the Windows 8 are bigger change than the techies think and therefore it is quite a bet on Microsoft’s part. But as Michael points out:
I think Microsoft feels it must find a way to leverage its waning strength in PCs to make itself relevant in mobile.