Microsoft Surface
First Microsoft would not state for the record what the event would be about. Then they refused to even say when or where it would occur. All the while they covertly spread seeds of rumor and disinformation about what it would involve. It seems all this was a blatant Mad Men-type marketing attempt to heighten the drama, interest and suspense around the mysterious event to scare up some free press.
Now so close to the moment we have discovered that that Barnes and Nobles is not a part of the mystery announcement and that the event will occur in Los Angeles at Milk Studios.
Was this Microsoft trying to be cool like Apple? Will any of this help usually boring Microsoft pull off something cool? In a short couple of hours the other shoe will finally fall and we will all see if Microsoft has the goods to merit all this mystery and be enough to get back in the game.
Odds-on Speculation was strong that Microsoft would use this event to launch a new Windows tablet (they were right, sort of) into a market that has deep historic reservations about anything almost anything new coming from the once-dominant company that virtually owned the market and had all the chips, but some say didn’t play fair.
At 3:30 p.m. PST I’ll take some valuable time out of my day to sit down and plug into one of the live blogs and like all the other tech media pundits not invited to attend I’ll sit back in emperor-like gladitorial judgement to give it thumbs up or down.
A few questions come to mind. Why LA? Are they deliberately staying out of the SF Bay Area traditionally Apple territory? If so, what does that say? Who is Microsoft aiming whatever they will announce at the media, traditional and social, or us everyday technology consumers?
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!\
Microsoft’ has unveiled two tablets. or as they are calling it a new ecosystemem withe name of Microsoft Surface
Microsoft Fanboys who needed a reason to jump back on the MS bandwagon now seem to have one. A few of them have gone way overboard claiming that Microsoft Surface is the single best thing that ever happened in computing,
The day after the event Microsoft staffers must be rejoicing and patting themselves on the back believing they hit it one completely out of the park leap frogging past Apple wiith a device that seems to combine the function and appeal of tablets and ultrabooks in one fell swoop. Nobody saw that coming.
They differ in dimensions and a few features:
- The Pro model is thicker,
- Both have a slim kickstand
- Both are made of magnesium
- Each works with either of two magnetic covers that double as keyboards one for multitouch input, one with physical keys.
No straight dope on pricing –
The Surface for Windows RT will cost about what similar to other Windows RT tablets
The Pro version will have prices similar to Ultrabooks.
Microsoft Surface for Windows RT has an NVIDIA chip inside,
Surface for Windows 8 Pro, which runs off Ultrabook-grade Ivy Bridge processors.