The Microsoft Surface Tablet . . .

#sniggerloudly 

Bruce

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Microsoft seems to have lost their way a bit at the moment.  They have just killed the Windows Phone 7 market (and Likely Nokia with it) by announcing Windows Phone 8 will not work on current hardware

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Not a big deal really.  WP7 & 7.5 were what they were..  WP8 ushers in a whole new ecosystem that will try to rival and beat iWhatever.  There's not a big enough market for pre WP8 anyways to matter.

Btw, what are the latest fruity rumors??? Oh yeah... http://dvice.com/archives/2012/06/new-iphones-19.php

MS does it and most ppl bash them.. Fruity does it and the cattle will still line up in droves to buy it...

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They received a lot of accolades for Windows 7, so decide to drop it in favour of metro on the desktop.  I like Apple's CEO comment that you can probably combine a toaster and a fridge but it wont be pretty

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You can also make a fruit cake, but that doesn't mean everyone will eat it

I'm really hoping MS ends up making the metro start and Start button options during install at release.  This would quiet the crowd and win back some support.

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They then announce a tablet that puts them in direct competition with their hardware partners.

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Yup, but MS gets licensing fees no matter what, so it's win-win for them.  You want an entry level W8 tab? go buy an Asus.. You want an ipad equivalent, by the MS slate.

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I am sure companies really want a Microsoft tablet because they see it a s safe, but I wonder if they are just to far behind.  Lots are moving to BYOD and that means a lot of iPads in corporate world.

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Large corps are not allowing BYOD to all their employees.  My last employer had 15k and maybe, maybe 50 in Sr management were allowed to get their ipads set up to load the thin client app.  The vast amount of productive work can't be done on an ipad and there's no way IT depts are going to let just anyone BYOD w/o having some kind of say in it.  Heck, even guest wireless access is off of the corp domain.

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PS I loved it when it crashed on stage http://youtu.be/UEJTRJY8KEQ

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Wouldn't be an MS stage show w/o a crash.. LOL

But, i like this one.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSj8GUZDuac

But why would their tech partners make a tablet they are crippled on price because they have to pay MS for the license.

I think killing WP7 just seems wrong, wasn't that the ecosystem to beat apple?

I really like what metro looks like and I wish my iphone had something like the live tiles/homepage.

I am with you on the start button, if not it may be back in Windows 9, dont they normally mess up the OS on even numbers (ME, Vista)

I may start a holy war here but I find my iPad2 is sometimes one of the worst performing devices I've ever had.  Tired of it spontaneously crashing or freezing or rebooting itself for no good reason.

And not a fan of the Safari browser on the iPad. Major ughs. Give me Chrome or Firefox or even, god forbid, IE.

And music, IMVHO, on the iPod sounds like #@$@#%$#%$#%$#.  I used to run my iPod in my car but have since switched to just using Flash drives so I can rip things to what I want with a better ripper and get away from iTunes.  And don't get me started on iLooneyTunes.

One of my favorite lines, which I wish I had invented was "Steve Jobs was a visionary but he ruined two things--music and Flash."

And I want to run a tablet version of Office.  I want to run my PowerPoint presos from a tablet.  So, come on, Microsoft, deliver with Surface and make things more competitive.  We consumers only benefit.

Of course, YMMV.

P.S. Have never heard "Fruity" before as a name for Apple.  Love it. 

The surface seems to be a hybrid between a laptop and a tablet. As an educator I love the inclusion of the usb port, and being able to transfer Wordprocessing documents is a huge plus.  The price point at 599 makes it competive to the Apple ipad2 for 499 add a keyboard cover and you are at the exact same price point. If it runs flash and lets the kids use sites like toondo, multiplication.com and other educational sites it may well break into the education market. Students and teachers bemoan the fact the ipads do not allow kids to use flash on educational sites.  The extra memory 32 Gig as oppossed to 16 Gig is another feature in the plus column. However the make it or break it for the tablet will be the quality of the speakers, ability to download music, and video creation.

Microsoft is a late entry to the tablet market and schools that have been using ipads for 2 years will likely not switch to Surface-not at about the same price point.

Just a shame that the OS is clunky and hybrised.  tHere are no apps and the camera is sub-standard and it does not run flash

But it looks that caching is better on the Surface than the iPad, whose caching is simply horrible.  I'm getting less and less enthralled with the iPad for e-learning.

Most of the reviews I'm seeing say if you want entertainment go with the iPad.  If you want business and productivity, go with the Surface. I'm waiting to see what the Surface Pro brings when it is released so I can shuck my horrible iPad2.

My children love the iPad, none of my projects work well on it so I stopped testing and offereing the option

For IT departments that have waited, and are "Windows shops," the Surface would appear to be more of a no-brainer than the iPad.  Support should be a little easier since things are similar (e.g., permissions, Active Directory, etc.).

I know people cite all the apps for the iPad, but I, for one, would appreciate fewer apps when doing a search.  Too many variations on the same theme aka too many choices often result in it being harder to choose which one to get.

The sense I get from the companies I work for is that they are skipping Windows 8 entirely. All have invested heavily in iOS including iPhones and iPads. Most of these companies are still using Windows XP. (Weird)

Microsoft has a long road ahead. 

Funny thing.  Dropped my new car off at the dealer today so they could install some things that weren't ready when I picked it up.

For the first time, saw the service advisers using tablets to check in customers and write up the service orders.  I even had to sign on the tablet

Asked my service rep what tablet was it.  He didn't know but it ran Windows--like their regular service PCs ran.  Said the company waited and skipped over the iPad.  He didn't know why.  He suspected they didn't want to port their software from Windows to iOS.  They wanted to save money from doing that.

Interesting! I'm probably going to be in the market for a Windows8 tablet for one of my gigs. Trying to decide: Surface? Microsoft creating hardware? Hmmm. Also, not sure I want to limit myself to the RT processor, although thinner/lighter is appealing. Thoughts community members?

Well, Windows tablets were around ages ago but nobody used them. Maybe some old IT guys recycled them.

Here's the Ars Technica review of Surface. Sounds pretty but pricey and yes, no Flash (Even Adobe admits Flash sucks battery life.)

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/10/microsofts-first-stab-at-a-pc-surface-reviewed/

My friend walked into a Windows store and they were practically begging her to buy one. Maybe you can haggle the price down.

Rebecca read the Ars article. There is confusion over the 2 flavors of Windows 8. Surface is the name of the Tablet. Windows RT is the operating system..... I think

Yes RT is the OS, never tried it on a tablet but on a desktop or laptop without touch it is just wrong

One thing--The Surface has Office if you are already a Office user and want a tablet for office productivity.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33642_7-57539392-292/microsoft-surface-vs-apple-ipad-4th-gen-vs-asus-transformer-infinity/

I'm waiting for the Surface Pro, due to be released next year, and see what it does.

I am looking forward to having a go on a surface tablet, I can understand the attraction of a "full-fat" version in surface-Pro because it should be able to run storyline among other things

That and a much bigger cache.

I also want a tablet that lets me simply look at my files and folders--and tweak.  I'm a tweaker by nature.

I also want a tablet that doesn't reboot itself or shut down the browser if a stray electron hits it wrong or goes into recovery mode at the drop of a hat.  Happened three times one day with my iPad2.

Gerry, that is odd behavior for an iPad. You should've returned it for a new one. I have never seen that in any of my iPads. (Have had all versions)

Right re RT. I misspoke meant the ARM processor with RT vs the standard CPU with Windows 8.

I used Windows tablets several years ago when working in a clinical setting. We demoed/used a convertible by HP and slates by Fujitsu and Motion. I also owned a Lenovo tablet for a while. None of these were touch.

I've been reading the reviews and trying to decide about my purchase. I'm also contemplating waiting for the Surface PRO because it works with all desktop apps - not just Office. Paul Thurrott has a nice comparison of the two.

But then, might it be better to go with someone else for hardware, rather than Microsoft?

Might be.  I just like that there's more and more competition finally ramping up.  Consumers win when there is true competition.

My favourite quote from all the reviews I have read

"this desktop looks like Windows, but you can’t load any regular Windows software onto it"