So, the Surface is going to do well because it's the third competitor against two well-established players, and a three-player market is better for consumers? This must finally be the year of the Linux desktop as well.
I've got Windows 8 on my laptop, by the way, and the Metro apps available right now tend to be slow, buggy, under-featured, and ad-ridden. The Metro ecosystem might take off, but given that the Microsoft built-ins are some of the worst of the bunch, it bodes ill.
I think that releasing Surface RT first will confuse a lot of customers. Many people are saying incorrectly that Surface will run Windows apps, but my understanding is that Surface RT won't, but a subsequent version will. If this is true, and if this gets Microsoft a lot of bad press, it will basically kill the Surface. Also, the iPad mini, despite my belief that it will completely cannibalize iPad sales and hurt Apple, will likely inhibit people from buying Surface as well.
Bit off-topic but a serious question (not flaming):
Even if the iPad Mini does cannibalize iPad sales (I'm sure it will cut into a percentage, but ultimately add to overall numbers/revenue), how will this possibly hurt Apple?
They need to sell around 1.5 or 2 iPad minis for every iPad they are replacing. They've already sold 100M iPads. They sold 14M ipads this last quarter, can the market support 22M to 28M iPad minis? I doubt it, but my guess is that a lot of people will go for the iPad mini because people don't want a tablet, they want an iPad, and they don't care which one it is. The fact that it's exactly the same but smaller and cheaper means most people will buy this, in my opinion.
But it's the same as an iPad2, not an iPad (Retina).
I think you are right that people will buy this because it's cheaper and smaller, but those are the people that would have purchased an iPad2 because they "don't want a tablet, they want an iPad, and they don't care which one it is."
In my mind the Mini is a replacement/upgrade on the current iPad2 (at a similar price point) and the full-blown Retina iPad will continue as the flagship of sorts.
The smaller size just means the Mini fits a niche that the previous offerings didn't.
I don't think the confusion would kill Surface since people will still want a Windows-compatible tablet and no other company can possibly deliver that to them except Microsoft.
In the Windows PC world, of which the Surface is an extension, you are used to being able to shop around for a less expensive model with the same fundamental specs.
They're fighting against OEMs that will try and make something like Surface, only cheaper. If they can, then Microsoft will be competing against them. If they can't because the licensing costs are too high, they'll abandon Windows and actively work against Microsoft.
Apple doesn't have this problem because of how they've structured their market. It's a premium product. You don't look for cheaper versions. At best you look for sales.
Ugh this is a pretty mobile site but scrolling all the way to the top enables some kind of pull to refresh type action that takes me to the next story. Also the now obvious icon for menus on the top left opens something completely different to a site menu. This is a visually appealing but otherwise frustrating mobile site to explore.
> The biggest breakthrough is upgrading the touchscreen revolution to the next generation. The new flavor of Windows uses large, animated tiles to convey when and where your new information, apps and services are updated. It’s a giant leap.
I really hate it when people use a banal description of the Metro interface as some kind of self-evident proof that is is better than Apple/Android and "the future".
You like Metro? Fine. But stop pretending that just because it is different it is necessarily better than everything else.
This site does not load at all with the Ghostery plugin, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what I need to allow to see the content, because it all looks like tracking code.
I can't speak for the Ghostery plugin, however is a JS based site that relies on client-side templates and JS to render the content. What browser and OS are you using?
The site pretty much requires a modern browser (IE9+, iOS, Android 3.0, Chrome, Safari, or FF) but the "degrade gracefully" aspect still need a lot of attention.
From the reviews I've seen Surface has pretty poor performance outside of animations and UI transitions, which shouldn't be too hard to begin with considering its low 1366x768 resolution. I don't think I'd pay $500 for an experience that's effectively worse than a netbook and has only half of the storage that it promises as free for the user. And you also get almost no apps of note, nor many apps that cover any niche you might be interested in.
