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Poll results: IT Pros plan to buy Microsoft Surface tablets not iPads

For my money, I intend to wait and see how (and "if") they actually work. Remember, there were a great many failed "smartphone" designs before the iPhone paradigm (touch screen, color, 16:9 aspect ratio) took hold and basically every phone adopted that interface model. Today a phone with a stylus is a relic, but the first decade of PDAs and smart-phones came with expensive styli that were easily lost, broken, or stolen.

So its hard to say if "Surface" is going to be something really special (like the iphone paradigm) or something interesting but passing, like the Handspring Treo.

From the days when Microsoft teamed up with IBM to make OS/2, which was buggy...

right down to Ford with their touch interface for Ford's cars, which has a LOT of customers truly irate over the poor and buggy performance - typical Microsoft slack shtick...

Surface will be as buggy and bloaty as everything else that company puts out, but the name is recognized and that's all the management cares about. Name recognition and assumptions.

It's all good.

There's a lot of 'promise' in Surface but still, we need to see some actual hands on. I know that one journalist got to spend some time with it but not much so does it count as hands on, I guess, but still, I think we need to see more to make sure that the device itself is worthy. I currently have a Series 7 Slate and it's been great. I haven't turned my laptop on since the Developer Preview came out and if not for having multiple monitors, I'd be using my Slate exclusively. Microsoft's really come out with something special for mobile users and with some of the ugprades in Surface over the S7, I'm seriously considering buying the Pro version when it comes out and the same will be true for the wife when RT comes out.

"...despite Win8 looking like it may be a flop."

W8 looks like it will be a flop on desktops and laptops. Tablets are exactly what it was designed for, at the expense of the older platforms.

I don't think it's that good on tablets either. It's better than Windows 7 for sure but it's far from perfection. I wonder if you can install Windows 7 on the Microsoft Surface?

However, since MS has complete control of the manufacturing and marketing of the product, I suspect they won't be making W7 drivers available. I'm positive installing W7 will void the warranty.

Why would you want to install Windows 7 on Surface hardware? Desktop OSs just don't work on tablets. That has been proven by Microsoft in the past. If you want Windows 7 get a laptop. Windows 8 is Microsoft's first real attempt at a Tablet OS and I am really hoping that they can make it work as well as most of us are hoping.

out, like they do everything that's new. The usefulness of any tablet in an enterprise situation, beyond marketing and delivery staff, is very limited apart from the 'geek' or 'I got one' factor.

It's really just a laptop with a touch interface. I don't see why there is so much negativity (maybe because it is Microsoft doing it?)

And what of the price, or the fact there was no mention of celluar support? I think it is to soon to have a poll on what IT professional would buy. This poll simply shows what people want. We would all love for the surface to be as good as it looks. But until I see a teardown and read some reviews. I will stick with my iPad. MS doesnt exactly have the best mobile device reputation. And that's not even to bash them. Its just fact. MS is a solid company with a solid product. But it doesnt mean they are the best. MS is the sedan of the world. We all have one. Apple is the luxury car. Most of us can't justify the cost. But those who have swear by them.

Apple iPad might be the luxury car - but with restictions. You are not allowed to be kissing in the car, and the back seat are ONLY for seated-and-belted children any thing else is immoral - fresh or sporty driving behaviour is prohibited in this car as it is a luxury car and is supposed to be driven approbiate for a luxury car !.
It can't be driven on a dirty out-back country road, and music for the sound-system can only be purchased and loaded from and by the car manufacture.
The "very green and eco-friendly" gasoline can only be bought and refilled from the car manufactures own gas stations - any attempt to check the quality or eco-friendlyness is a violation of the enduser-agreement.
No wonder why many preferes another product !.

I would have prefered the Surface to have been made by another manufacture - like Acer, Lenovo, Asus, MSI or ...... just not MS

The Surface, probably, will not be the best build product - but if its just one of the best of the rest - it will do!

Apple is indisputable one of - if not the best - builder of high quality mobile products.
But my old (5 years) DELL Latitude 630D with all options on the list except for theft and total-irresponsible-behaviour insurance, is still going strong and probably costed the same as a comparable iBook. Haven't had an insident - call the servicecontract a waste - but nice to have.
Maybe an iBook is slightly better build but as tool the 630D is so much more versatile for me.

Back to the Surface - it doesn't please me that MS has total control of both SW and HW - it might be a "loser" for the users just as it is with the Apple/iPad.

My "clients" are 98% using Windows. I would need to use various tools that use Windows. But I wouldn't touch the RT version but the regular Windows 8 Pro edition. Only downside is that Windows 8 is on it! Another issue could be the price. Rumour has it that the cheapest non-RT version will still be more expensive than the cheapest iPad model.

There's more functionality in the Pro model than the iPad. That's not to say that the iPad is a bad device but rather a mobile finger friendly pc brings more to the table. Getting customers to understand that difference and the value it brings will be the real challenge though from the time I've spent with my clients, they 'get it' in a few minutes..

what you need it to do. It's kind of like cell phones: some people feel they need one with texting, Internet access, and a built in camera, yet others just want a cheap device to make and receive voice calls. No point in paying for the extra unless you need it.

Which is where RT comes into the mix. With Office bundled, it's pretty much ready to go for the basic casual user.

the apps that it does have. From what I've read from Microsoft it's about as capable as the old Office Works set up. Mind you, the full blown version of Microsoft Office is absolutely no good to me as it's incapable of safely opening the old MS Word and MS Excel files from several years ago that I'm required to keep in 'as they were' condition for legal reasons until seven years after the contract run out. That's an issue I found with Office 2003, and why I now use Libre Office, as it will do what Microsoft Office can't.

Personally, I think any tablet system has a very limited usage in the majority of work organisations, and trying to stretch it beyond those needs is only going to screw it up.

RT is targeted at the basic casual user that every once in a while uses Word/Excel.

and it isn't as the most common enterprise usage of a computer is the preparation of documents. As I've said elsewhere, I can see limited usage for a tablet in business where it can be useful, but it's very limited. And RT makes it less useful for some of those usages.

And besides, who trusts any document editing program - I could fake the origination date of any doc made by any editor except adobe acrobat professional which is what any legal document should be stored with,

them at all and it also buggers the file trying to open and convert it. For some versions you can now get some MS add-ons to open them, but it's not a default part of MSO and is very unli9kely to be part of any cut back version.

But this is an "if you bought" a tablet question - speaking as an IT Pro why would I? Why wouldn't I stick with my laptop? Yes Windows 8 runs more of my stuff than an iPad but it doesn't run as much of my stuff as a laptop with Windows 7 on it. If you held a gun to my head and said I had to choose then yes I would buy a Windows 8 tablet but frankly I'm not going to buy either.

People keep saying that Windows 8 is designed for tablets - yes it is but having spent some time using it now I don't think it's that good actually, even on tablets. Anytime you want to do anything even marginally complex you end up having to go into the desktop mode and groping through Control Panel to do it. All I wanted to do was change the power settings!

Tablets are just not that big of a deal for serious IT - if they were they would have taken off years ago with XP tablet edition. Yes Windows 8 is far superior to XP tablet edition but I still can't see much point to it in the workplace. I can see a few people using tablets for mobile work (e.g. delivery people, maintenance operatives and the like), making presentations and the usual high-level corporate types who want a toy but that's about it.

"We have no plans to buy tablets in the next year."

And I use my Win8 slate for 100% of my mobile work, 20% of my regular Office work, 100% of my casual use and 60% of my own off hours development. It's suitable for serious IT work, now more than ever because it has the added value of being able to be your only device. Touch on the desktop seems to be better for some reason but that could be subjective to the hardware/screen/drivers.

There's no way around it. So, Microsoft Surface is a good idea as far as hardware design is concerned. Alas, metro interface is designed to be primarily finger friendly, so... I don't know how this combination is going to work.

The ideal combination would probably be Surface and Linux.

So they are going to make the same mistake they made when the bought IBM PC instead of Mac. Great going. Irrespective to the pain it brought to the IT world for the last 30 years.

Our company uses Active Directory for 30000 plus Windows machines. The first tablet that runs all of our applications and FULLY participates in AD will be the tablet we buy.

It is my understanding from what I have read that this is no AD capability.

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-18/news/31359621_1_tablet-makers-tablets-ipad

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2012/04/30/the-real-reason-microsoft-windows-rt-devices-won-t-be-able-to-join-ad-domains-hint-ad-is-not-about-systems-management-anymore.aspx

Surface Pro for the Enterprise.
Surface RT for the home user who wants a media consumption device.

...he made it pretty clear the Pro version would be the best candidate. My organization has the same needs, and the Pro is looking pretty attractive.

So what does the Surface let me do better? With an RDP connection to my Win 8 desktop i can maintain my ticketing system in real time, Sametime a collegue for info/advice, map a drive from another pc where a batch file might sit onto a different target...the possibilities for a support person are endless. And because it is Windows it will fit in the security framework and it wont be virtualized on the tablet. Surface will kill Good Technology on the tablet, bye bye Ipad and Android in the corporation. and if I can RDP why do I need a full version of Office? A lightweight version for when I am offline will more than suffice. You pick the right tool for the job. If you need mobile and lightweight take your surface. Road warriors take their laptops. C-Suite consume info, Surface gives them that and the security kludging an Ipad or Android into your network doesn't!

I think that there will be a big market for Microsoft with this tablet but the tablet MUST perform! If they don't get it right the first time (at launch) they will never recover. If Microsoft brings the enterprise connectivity (DirectAccess or...) and good apps like a nice Office suite to this tablet than I am sold! But hey, I am an IT Pro and look at the integration options. Home users don't care what it takes to integrate with the corporate network and that it works well with our internal Windows servers, it just needs to work and they just love Apple, that won't change (much). So I think that there will be more than one player in the BYOD world.

right and i have bottom land for sale the bottom of a lake.the cameras,texting,and makeing a phone call thats IT work.how about security.or maybe just maybe you are going to need to make nice nice or lose your jobs do to the lack of need of you skills ? haha no need of for a bunch to techs if a lot is done from microsoft it self and the device is locked down by the company and the enployees cant screw it up .

For those of us old enough to remember when Apple took on IBM presenting those of us with IBM compatable computers to be lemings following some false god on a projection screen. It seems like over the 28 years, things have changed. It now seems like those with Apple gear are the ones hypnotised and it is Microsoft, and others that are trying, valliantly, to break into Apples profit margines. Am I interested in the Surface? You bet I am. I'll be willing to pay a slight premium even for it. However, if it were made in America, I'd be even more willing to pay a larger premium!

I live and work in Germany. People here are as crazy about the iPad (i-anything for that matter) as anywhere else, I suppose. Where I work is no different. I see end users carrying around an iPad, using it for nothing more than a show off piece to their colleagues and to have "bragging rights" that they have the newest, latest, greatest, most expensive "toy". I too, am an IT Pro (I guess). I work as a DBA and can tell you that I have absolutely no need for ANY tablet of any kind. The work I need to do is often too complex or too processor heavy to use a tablet. For that I have a laptop that is, more or less, a carbon copy of my desktop (smaller in size though ).
Would I buy a tablet? Sure, if I could find something practical to use it for. Otherwise, it's another toy that I don't really need and would likely end up on the shelf next to my XP tablet.

I have to agree with Cybershooters...no serious IT professional would really need one...not for the work that we need to do - from infrastructure management to software development, it's not that useful.

I can almost say that it a tablet would not be very useful for the end user either...maybe as a surfing tool or email reader, but not much else.

I am on vacation in New York at the moment and had the chance to visit the observation deck of the Empire State Building...guess what I saw? I saw people (maybe 20 or 30 out of the 200 that were crammed out on the deck) using the iPad as a camera...funny.

Glen

Yes we all want a tool that allows us to do our jobs. In a Windows world MAC/APPLE fails to support that. But as to whether Windows 8 on a tablet format will be that answer remains to be seen. I love my windows phone but still run a dual boot laptop, there is still a lot of XP out there.

Starting with "why?". I've heard a number of complaints (which seem valid to me) about iPads (well anything Apple) being hard to manage in a big IT environment. Are the IT pros perceiving that Microsoft will provide better tools for integrating the tablet into the enterprise? That's the kind of thing I'd like to know - what makes MS a more attractive option to the IT pro? I can see other concerns. The dependence on web-services like iCloud to do much would seem like something that strikes fear into the heart of the IT pro - but I keep hearing about how cloud dependent windows 8 is, so how is MS' approach to "the cloud" easier on corporate IT?

I will most definitely look at the surface for tablet computing - not for myself but for those EVPs that insist on a tablet. This is a device that runs Windows natively, has full Office access, domain aware and can be managed by the same systems currently in place in 95% of the enterprises today. Implementation and true management of iPads and Androids has been a cluster at best, and is overly time consuming, and in the end (as pointed out in other comments) you have to go to a real computer to get any work done, and these will be true winodws with truely compatible apps. As for price - by the time you purchase your Zaggo keyboard, dport video convertor, USB adapter, etc. the cost will be the same if not less - and you wont need to install iTunes on every machine and try to keep up with updates.

The ONLY reason for a computer professional to buy Surface, is because they will be expected to support it. They more than likely already own an iPad, which they probably support, AND use. My own personal feeling, as a computer/network technician is that if the boss will not buy me the thing that I will need down the road, because people will expect me to support it, I will have to buy it for myself. I don't want to have to learn the thing by osmosis.
Chances are that they will use it only when it will do things that the iPad will not do. (not accounting for the raft of Microsoft fan boys out there, who will buy ANYTHING Microsoft.)

...it's not exactly the same thing, but wouldn't using Win8 on the desktop be sufficient for supporting these things? As IT Pros, one of the main aspects of our jobs is to rapidly adapt and understand new technology, even if it's our first time with it. I didn't have an iPad at first, but I could definitely support people with them thanks to my company provided iPhone. If someone needs some help on their Samsung tab, my personal LG Revolution phone was similar enough for me to understand and help.