When one tiger is brought to another, they fight.
June 18, Los Angeles, on a press event, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, unveils a revolutionary product for the first time in the past 37 years of Microsoft’s history, drawing a period of its self-made principal: Never ever make PCs. By revolutionary, I mean, revolutionary to Microsoft itself, at least for the time being. As whether or not it is capable of revolutionizing the relative field, I keep my words for now. The product is named Surface. Yes, a tablet!
Microsoft Surface has two variants, one for Windows RT, introducing an NVIDIA chipset, and the other for Windows 8 Pro, carrying Intel Ivy Bridge Quad-core i5 processors. These two versions differ slightly from each other in dimension, with the Pro model a little bit thicker. But both have a slim kickstand, something like the one you see on a photo frame, approximately 3 mm in thick. What makes the curious people want to put their curious paws on is that both versions can work with two genuinely designed covers, something very similar to the Smart Cover that goes with the New iPad, but different from the Smart Cover, these two magnesium made covers can serve both as protection cases and as external keyboards, one featuring multi-touch function, the other emphasizing on physical keys.
Availability? Unknown. Price? Unknown.
Gossips fly.
Soon, rumors find their ways before anyone notices. Among those gossips, the most famous one goes like this: Microsoft releases this tablet PC to issue a war against iPad. As known, tablet PC market is now ruled by Apple, with Android camp running far behind, trying to catch up but never makes its way there. If iPad is regarded as a tiger, will Surface be qualified as another?
Seemingly, there is a game now prevailing in the whole IT industry, the core of this game is to prove that Jobs might be wrong. And Microsoft, the old companion and enemy of Apple, is one of the most active players. In the first place, Jobs strongly opposes to make tablet computer the way people do with PC, believing that tablet computer is a post-PC device, it should be simpler than PC from a manipulation perspective, and it should be much successful in integrating hardware and software. Captain Cook, Jobs’ successor, generally takes Jobs’ core concepts regarding this point: if you combine the two into one, both fail to unfold its advantages. It is this unwavering creed that helps Apple build its huge ecosystem, greatly proves Job a great visionary the world ever seen. Data’s from IDC show that the market share of iOS products will very much likely increase to 62.5%, from a percentage of 58.2% in the previous fiscal year, which will, analysts from IDC believe, expand the gap between iOS and Android to a further extent.
Microsoft, on the contrary, never gives up its strong desire to reshape tablet industry, hoping to integrate tablet with PC so that tablet users can run the same apps that a laptop or a desktop can. Suppose, you can edit a spreadsheet or a word document exactly the way as you do on laptop and desktop, would it be cool? To its Surface, both insiders and outsiders are very interested in its keyboard, exactly, Type Cover and Touch Cover, stating that this is a killer feature. With these covers, you can compose an E-mail or Facebook thread much quicker than you do with iPhone or iPad’s software keyboards. This especially fits the situation when quick typing is required.
Gossips are gossips. Can Surface make its way?