All this from a wank-tastic buzz video that doesn't even show the device in operation?
What is it with the punditry these days? Surely there is a whole evo-biol book out there devoted to explaining this particular nonsense facet of human behaviour?
While I don't disagree that the video is style over substance, it would be wrong to say that the hardware is vapour. MS gave out 5000 windows 8 tablets last year: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/BUILD-Tablets-Developers-Wi... I assume that they've learned from those devices in the nine months since they shipped hardware.
Yes, those devices were "Samsung" branded and these will be "Microsoft" branded. The components inside, or the factory in China where they may be assembled probably won't be changed by that.
Technically, anything that has been announced and not shipped is vapourware. But I wouldn't say that surface is notably vaporous, since it's not late - it can't ship before win8 does; nor is it technically unlikely for the hardware or software to ship - similar Win8-beta devices shipped 9 months ago, and Apple makes similar hardware in huge quantity.
Most importantly of all, no prices at all have been unveiled. There are no reviews. There is no ecosystem (speaking specifically of the ARM device. The Intel device is going to be a hot, power-gobbling, very expensive beast and is effectively an ultrabook more than a tablet)
Yup, sure thing. Apple better start saving for that rainy day.
OP here. I agree (and state in my article) that MS could completely screw this up by pricing themselves out of the market. I don't expect they will though, but mostly because they can afford to make it cheap - even sell at cost, if they have to.
I'd argue that reviews and software are less relevant here than they were for say Android in a similar position:
1. People will buy it regardless of reviews (even if only on the desktop at first). Metro is guaranteed to get share off the back of Windows.
2. Developers will follow that share.
Essentially with enough time Microsoft are guaranteed to leverage their Windows share to Metro, and combined with some competitive hardware makes them a force to be reckoned with.
I'm pretty much the definition of an Apple fanboy (I own an iPad, 2 MacBook Pros, an iMac, an iPhone AND APPL stock). And I still stopped to say - that hardware looks impressive. If they can do that to me, well...
That's taking shape already. There is an app store, there is an SDK. And there are loads of programmers who know one or more of the supported languages on the metro API for Arm and Intel - C++, C# or Javascript
What is it with the punditry these days? Surely there is a whole evo-biol book out there devoted to explaining this particular nonsense facet of human behaviour?