Priced to fail?
Arguing like an Apple fan: "Well if you can't afford it, that must be because you're poor". Seriously, not one media article ever criticised Apple's overpriced offering offering, indeed Apple get praise from the media and fans for having high profit margins! Yet all we've heard about the MS Surface (and Android tablets, to some degree) is scrutiny about how much it might cost.
It's true that the Surface isn't aimed at the low end, so there's plenty of room for the Android tablets, but I think that much was clear anyway - it would be hard for MS to compete there, with Android being free, and there being smaller profit margins at the low end. Plus there's always the opportunity for other manufacturers to provide cheaper Windows tablets, with the MS Surface being a high end "flagship" (similar to the Google phones - unlike Apple, but like Android, MS aren't tied to a single device).
And anyhow, the price announced is cheaper than Apple, so how is that priced to fail?
"Cupertino has trumped Redmond on screen resolution"
Anything higher than 1280x720 is pointless on such a small device like a tablet. Indeed, if you're saying price is important, I'd rather have the cheaper price than the pointless higher resolution.
"More importantly, it has the applications that make a tablet something more than a fancy doorstop."
If you like fart apps and website wrappers.
"Any app vendor that wants to make money has to develop for the iPad; the same is not true for Windows RT."
The largest OSs are Windows and Android. Admittedly a lot of people develop for Apple because they think it's the largest OS, but that doesn't mean the rest of us has to live that delusion.
"The range of apps you can get for an Android tablet is also nearly as good as Apple"
Only nearly? Sorry, what can you do on Apple that you can't do on Android?
"Neither have a good Microsoft Office solution, but that doesn't seem to have hurt them too much in terms of sales and user annoyance."
This argument makes no sense - most people have yet to buy any non-phone tablet. That there might exist an area where Windows is better would be a reasonable point. The fact that many people don't care about it doesn't mean that no one is.
"There's also the Ultrabook market to consider."
Indeed, though the Surface Pro is basically an "ultrabook" (in function, not trademark) that's also a tablet. It will be interesting to see the pricing on this. And we already know there will be plenty of Windows tablet/laptop hybrids priced similarly to these ultrabooks.
And the most obvious point is that if people buy a $699 Windows 8 Ultrabook instead of a $499 MS Surface, then MS still win - people are still buying Windows. It would be like claiming Google failed because they're Nexus phones don't sell anywhere as well as the Samsung flagships - it's missing the point, because overall Android still dominates.
"The new OS with its not-Metro interface really only makes sense for touch users"
False, there are new features in Windows 8 that aren't just about touch or the UI. And it still works with keyboard and mouse.
I suspect we'll start to see more laptops with touchscreens as standard - I don't know why we don't already, given that touchscreen monitors are commonplace with even desktop PCs now.
"Rightly or wrongly, Apple has the cool factor for fondleslabs"
Cool? If you say so. Some people think they're cool because they have clothes plastered with adidas logos, but that doesn't mean the rest of us think so.
"there's a very long way to go before the system can be properly assessed"
Funny, when it was the ipad, or "islate", the media were proclaiming it the second coming of Jesus even before it was announced, let alone released and "properly assessed". Fair enough if one wants to criticise the Surface or Windows 8 along with tablets in general - but this criticism of MS, yet praise of Apple - who are the ones who want to force touch-only devices on everyone - is odd.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
