Discussion on:

Microsoft Surface: Why CIOs think it's a real iPad challenger

Enough said....

Sound familiar? While the Surface certainly has some intriguing attributes, there are too many unknowns to crown it as the next coming. Here's a few concerns until we have more details;
- Price
- Battery life
- App pricing
- Compatibility with legacy applications
- App availability

Valid questions but comparing the motorola zoom to the surface is irrational. You might as well compare the surface to the kindle fire. The ARM version can be compared to other tablets but the intel version is the one that will be the real competition in the first year. The arm version will likely suffer from a lack of great metro apps and feel more consumer oriented. The intel version will be sought after, and potentially recommended, by IT professionals that support a mobile workforce and can leverage "Compatibility with legacy applications". Since it's full windows 8 and not a gimpy kneecapped tablet OS. Sure, battery life is a concern, but it is one that many of us have learned to live with with laptops, because sometimes being productive takes a little extra energy. I'll put out the energy to find someplace to charge devices that make me money.

We've already had our hands on the Zoom; no one in the 'real world' has seen a Surface yet.

Price? We know the price at least roughly. Surface with Windows RT, same price as a similar spec iPad. Surface Pro with Windows 8, same price as a similar spec ultrabook. Personally, I think you can take that to the bank.

App Pricing & Availability - this is only an issue for Metro apps, so this is only a concern for Windows RT and Surface. Windows 8 and Surface Pro run all of your Windows applications and you know how much they cost. I have yet to find any Windows application that does not run on Windows 8. So, this also removes any questions about compatibility with legacy applications. If it runs on Win7 it will run on Win8.

That only leaves us with one question, battery life, and I agree that is a question mark, and a big one. To have a real shot at the iPad, I think that Surface with Windows RT has to match the iPad's battery life. Surface Pro may not need to match it, but it will have to put in a pretty good day's work without a recharge, say 6 hours minimum. I'd look at the ultrabooks for comparison, and I haven't looked at their real battery life.

Sounds about right. Pick the tool that makes it more difficult to do your jobs.
I hate CIOs that think they know what there people do, what tools they need,
as opposed to what they have asked for. A few years ago our group of SAs
had a meeting to decide on which of 2 competeing doc tools we should settle on.
(all were home grown because, of course, the corporation didn't provide anything).
After we decided on one, our CIO came along and nixed the idea and gave us some
awful VB application that never worked right.

Runs very well currently on my Samsung XE700T1A Slate, much better in fact than Windows 7 does. That said, I'll wait and see what the final release looks like before I decide on any upgrades for my collection of devices as I don't care for Metro on my workstations (they may well stay at Windows 7) even with touch capable monitors.

As for the CIO's embarrassment, I'd be more embarrassed if I wasn't at least weighing the pros/cons now with plans to do hands on testing as soon as reasonably possible among a variety of my mobile user base.

That is the point. YOU are not seeing it. It is there, and these CIOs do see it. It is there to be seen. The free apps cannot replace Microsoft Office. The paid version of Google docs may be a rival for Office 365, but lots of people want Office locally, and MS can offer that.

Honestly, I have yet to meet anyone who thinks Windows 8 stinks who has given it a real chance. Now, you haven't said why you think it stinks, but each time I read the whys offered for why it stinks, what I see is someone who did not give it a chance. It runs great on my portable. I set up a dual boot with Windows 7, but I don't use Windows 7 anymore....ever. Windows 8 is that good. Windows Vista drivers work correctly in Windows 8, so no worries about incompatible hardware, if it works in Windows Vista, or it works in Windows 7 it will work in Windows 8.

I actually use the online Office apps a lot. I like the convenience of saving everything on SkyDrive, but I cannot imagine actually asking anyone to use them for real work. They just aren't there yet.

There are questions still to be answered about Windows 8/RT and Surface/ Pro, but nothing you bring up is among those questions. Surface Pro is going to give you a full Windows PC in the same form factor as the iPad (at least the new one, thanks Apple), but it will run the apps you already know. Yes, it will cost more than an iPad, but you will be getting more than an iPad...in every way. Apple can brag about how many apps they have, but it doesn't really compare to the number of Windows applications and they will all run on the Surface Pro.

I don't know if Surface and Windows 8/RT are going to be a big hit, but they do provide a better option for IT.

Whatever became of being independent of the platform? One device should be as good as another and all should operate within standards.

You mean, its sales performance should be roughly equivalent to the number of Internet Explorer crashes per keynote, or what exactly?

I wonder, did any of this enthusiastic press people ever watch the keynote or spend a second thought, or are they all "bought" (as Apple is often accused of)?

I watched the Keynote and I don't know what you are talking about. I saw on Surface fail in one operation. In case you couldn't see it, Sinofsky was trying to pull down the top "tab" bar in IE and it didn't work. The OS did not blue screen or show any major problem. He was in the middle of a major presentation and rather than figure out what was going on, he grabbed another unit to continue the presentation.

I didn't see any other crashes, either IE or anything else. Seems like you are the one who is bought (by Apple) who fails to give a first thought.

Surface is, after all, and like Android tablets, just an immitation of the iPad. No innovations. Clumsy software. No proper apps market or across-the-board infa-structure. All those IT people who still live in a Microsoft world are simply missing the point: Microsoft means low quality, compared to Apple products, and innovations-wise, is, now, very far behind. The problem, itself, is, in-fact, in MS's infra-structure and culture as a company. Both cannot produce strong and innovative products!

What I saw was a tablet that makes the iPad look like last year's news. It looked better than any iPad. The kickstand and the TouchCover are major innovations that put it out beyond the iPad, and Windows 8 is anything but clumsy, which anyone who uses it will tell you.

Try putting down your cup of Kool-Aid and take off the Apple shaped glasses and what you will see is Microsoft leading the way and Apple trailing behind. I cannot wait for the next iPad, when Apple will copy the features of Surface and all the fanboys will talk about how revolutionary it is.

Why don't you go out and get that "tablet that makes the iPad look like last year's news"? Oh, that's right it's not available, and won't be for months and months. In fact, we don't even know how many months it will not be available for. But hey, at least you can budget for it in next year's accounting. Oh wait, you can't do that either, since you don't have a price for it, except for a vague promise of it being "comparable" to something else. You say that you "cannot wait for the next iPad", but you're totally content to wait (likely as long) for a Surface Pro? OK, so your glasses are Microsoft-tinted. Get off your high horse, and enjoy your vaporware.

The iDiots and their revisionist history always makes me chuckle.
http://betanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Bill-Gates-and-Tablet-PC-468x600.jpg

http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/gatestablet.PNG
iPad is just a successful evolution of something that Microsoft and even Apple tried and failed at before.

Personaly I don't subscribe to the notion that Microsoft, with all it's "software building" skills have all of a sudden, and magically become somehow endowed with the ability to build a tablet. Its not a question of if they CAN....but more a question of if they SHOULD. Microsoft has been, and always WILL be known for software,......buggy, quirky, broken software, but software nonetheless, the few "hardware" devices they've built, (and even some of those are outsourced to other places!) cannot be put on the same playing field as the Samsungs, HO's Hitachi's and Apples out there. The only hardware I've known to come from them besides the XBox would be the few "Microsoft" keyboards and mice.....now they're just going to "build" a tablet and it's going to be on the same level as Aple?....maybe even give them some form of competition? I'm sorry.,...I just don't see it happening. If anything Microsoft will make a decent showing, but I don't think they're set to pounce on any serously sized market share of the tablet community.

With the red ring of death

Microsoft has had ten years of building a successful hardware platform. Look at the Xbox and Xbox 360 the latter of which is the sales leader in North America among dedicated gaming consoles.

Entertainment and Devices Division showed losses for years, including a multibillion dollar charge for the aforementioned red ring of death debacle. And yes, while that unit shows a profit fairly regularly, if you take the time value of the money Microsoft has spent on Xbox, it probably could have made a greater profit by putting it in T-bills.

Or the incredibly successful Kin? How can you doubt Microsoft's hardware prowess? Why, in 15 years, the Xbox has only lost about 7.7 billion dollars. Microsoft has proven again and again that it can conceive, design, and market innovative, profitable products to both the consumer and enterprise, just look at the Courier. [/sarcasm]

I always go for the original. MS simply dismantled a laptop and made it generally look like an iPad

Multiple manufacturers released tablets running a tablet-optimized version of XP years before the iPad was a ink stain on Steve's drawing board. I'm not saying they were very good, but they predated your 'original' iPad. The apps store isn't even original; it's a variation on Linux' repositories.

Let me simplify it for you. When I say "I follow the original" I ONVIOUSLY mean THE ORIGINAL SUCCESS, of course, i.e. THE iPad.

Glad to shut-up all those microsofties