I hadn’t managed to watch any of the clips of Microsoft’s announcement of their new Surface tablets (I love tech, but making a living comes first) until this little gem came to me via one of my RSS feeds:
Coincidence? The comparison is more than a little damning, even if the clips are edited. It’s still too early to say what the Surface’s long term prospects are, but I do think it’s safe to say that Microsoft needs this tablet far more than consumers do. Android tablets still don’t offer enough value for many consumers to opt for one over Apple’s offering, but after three years the tablet market may be winding down its boom phase. Finding new uses for the devices is likely to fuel more sales than new users that haven’t owned a tablet, and Apple has a tremendous head start in app development, infrastructure, accessories, and institutional support. Microsoft really needs the Surface to at least be passable in order to keep from missing out on this genre entirely.
