Well the event is still going on as I type this, but apparently Microsoft is going to make their own tablet to go with Windows 8. \u00a0They’ve borrowed the 5-year-old name of the Surface tabletop-touchscreen device, so get ready for all sorts of Surface puns.<\/p>\n
Short version: there’s no reason you can’t take a touch-tablet experience and cram a regular PC into it.<\/p>\n
No, seriously. There are two versions of this trick: one running Windows RT, which is the Metro-touch-only version of Win8, and a pro version with last year’s i5 processor in it and vents around the entire perimeter of the device. \u00a0Yes, folks, this is a tablet with ventilation. I see no way this ends badly.<\/p>\n
The unique selling point so far appears to consist of a kickstand (only viable in landscape mode), a SmartCover knockoff that has a quasi-membrane keyboard on the underside (so you get a sort-of-desktop experience, because this sure as shit isn’t going to fly in your lap), and of course the opportunity to run Windows on a touchscreen interface (though presumably that’s what the SmartCover knockoff is meant to handle). \u00a0<\/p>\n
USB3 and HDMI, so they’re basically attempting to pitch this as the transitional best-of-both-worlds device that beats out your notebook and your iPad with a single gadget. \u00a0But as much as Microsoft is now just basically trying to clone Apple – which is the story of Microsoft, when you get right down to it, whether Apple or WordPerfect or Netscape – they haven’t managed the presentation bit, because the first Surface crapped out on demo and they had to pull the backup. \u00a0Some things never change.<\/p>\n
When you get right down to it, that seems to be how high tech works now. \u00a0Somebody invents something crazy, that’s stage one. \u00a0Then somebody – usually Apple these days – perfects it and makes it something anyone can use, whether it’s an MP3 player, a consumer smartphone or a legit tablet computer. \u00a0And then a couple years later, Microsoft lurches into view and barfs up a knockoff that has as its principle virtue cheapness and compatibility with the existing Windows\/Office ecosystem.<\/p>\n
The problem is, that hasn’t worked. \u00a0The Zune was a joke from stem to stern. \u00a0Windows Phone seems to be rounding into a contender for third place, even if it’s about to undergo a compatibility watershed. \u00a0But the attempt to extend the Windows empire into tablets – to literally put a classic Windows desktop on a touchscreen tablet – suggests that Microsoft still can’t let go of Windows as the key to everything. And yet, Windows hasn’t been a part of the next big thing for a decade now. \u00a0One has to wonder whether the beast of Redmond wouldn’t have been better served by making a clean break – but at this point, that may not even be conceivable. \u00a0Microsoft is going to live and die with Windows, in whatever form that takes.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
ETA: you have to think that Microsoft’s OEM partners are frisbee<\/em> pissed. \u00a0And yet, this is probably what they had to do, and looking at the Android tablet ecosystem, it’s basically their only chance: partners are not going to craft a premium experience. \u00a0If Microsoft is serious about the touch-tableting of Windows, their only real choice is to do it themselves and demonstrate their vision, and hope the OEMs will play along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well the event is still going on as I type this, but apparently Microsoft is going to make their own tablet to go with Windows 8. \u00a0They’ve borrowed the 5-year-old name of the Surface tabletop-touchscreen device, so get ready for all sorts of Surface puns. Short version: there’s no reason you can’t take a touch-tablet … <\/p>\n