Is Microsoft Breaking The Surface With It’s Surface Tablet? – Tech Tuesday

Some people are calling it Microsoft's "Apple Moment". At a very "hush hush" event in Los Angeles on Monday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off the Surface, their new tablet device to take on the iPad. Could this one be the iPad killer Microsoft is hoping for? Or just an attempt to stay relevant?

I don't think it will be an iPad killer. Although Microsoft is trying hard to come up with something to be more competitive. This isn't Microsoft's first journey into tablets. They have tried to make them before, but the trick was they would just slap a full version of Windows on the machine and call it a tablet computer. Nothing special made the software friendly for mobile computing. Apple basically wrote a whole new operating system that was friendly and that is one of the reasons the iPad is so successful. Microsoft could be hard pressed still.

I still have to say it looks good. Microsoft designed the Surface in house and they are using Windows 8 which they built to be very user friendly. Maybe a little too for a desktop, but could be just fine for a phone or tablet. But how does the new Surface tablets stack up?

They have a 10.6 inch display with Gorilla glass, a full sized USB port, dual WiFi antennas, multitouch keyboard and trackpad, and about a half inch thick. They will come in 64 or 128 gigabyte capacity. It will also come with it's own stand. I'm not sure why it needs a trackpad if it's a tablet and supposed to be mobile.It looks kind of like a ultra think laptop to me.

But one thing is for sure, Microsoft needs this to stay competitive. Google's Droid products as well at Apple's have pretty much eclipsed much of Microsoft's offerings in the mobile world. Windows 8 phones have not been doing very good. Apple has over 60% of the market and Google 35%, with Microsoft just kind of hanging there with a small piece of the pie. CEO Steve Ballmer said "With Windows 1.0, we needed the mouse to complete the experience. We wanted to give Windows 8 its own hardware innovation. Something new, different, a whole new family of computing devices from Microsoft." Another thing the Redmond company needs to consider too, is Apps. iOS had over 600,000 of them. Google somewhere in the vicinity of 500,000. Microsoft will need some help getting caught up. If this does work, Microsoft could be back on the map. If not, then who knows where it will go from there for them.

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