So Microsoft has gone and done it.
The company has sold operating systems for other companies’ computers for more than 30 years. Sticking to the software and letting other people deal with the hardware side is what made Microsoft the multinational behemoth that dominated the computing landscape through the 1990s and much of the 2000s. MS-DOS; 16-bit Windows 1, 2, and 3; the hybrid Windows 95 family; and the 32-bit (and, later, 64-bit) Windows NT family that is still with us to this day: all were sold primarily to computer OEMs for preinstallation on new machines.
With Surface, Microsoft is diving headlong into a new business model. Let’s be blunt here: Redmond is going the Cupertino route. Microsoft is not merely writing the software. It’s designing hardware to go with that software, and contracting manufacturers in the Far East to turn its designs into millions of units of real, shipping hardware, that Microsoft will be selling directly to customers.
If Microsoft doesnt have a ton of business software included, it will fail. They have already stated they will not try and outprice the competition (which is a mistake) so the only thing they have to fall back on are the business customers that want a more business like tablet to use on the go.
Microsoft can not jump into the game late and expect to be able to be able to command a premium for its product that has been untested in the real world. Kinda like Dunkin Donuts starting to make brake rotors and charging the same or more that top manufacturers.
You can count MS’ hardware successes on two fingers – Mouse, Keyboard.
Maybe three. X-box. Though I don’t use them, my boys have loved them.