"None of them has a product that you can really use."

“You can go through the products from all those guys … and none of them has a product that you can really use. Not Apple. Not Google. Not Amazon. Nobody has a product that lets you work and play that can be your tablet and your PC. Not at any price point.

“This is a first-class tablet that people can enjoy and appreciate,” Ballmer continued. “It’s a PC; it’s a tablet. It’s for play; it’s for work. It’s a got a great price. That product doesn’t exist today.” Steve Ballmer.

I thought he had finally lost his mind when he said the above, but he sort of has a point. I don't know about you, but when it comes to writing and serious work I always go back to a laptop or my iMac. A tablet or smartphone are great for many tasks, but not all of them. Whether the Surface is the answer is debatable, however.

Comments

[David Cohen]

Aach, this "tablet is no good for serious work" meme is so stale it's mouldy.

I work in business - and I see plenty of tablets used for work. Real work. Heck, I turned out a 1500 word report on my iPad just the other night. Plenty of people can type on a glass screen in landscape, especially if they are not trained touch-typists. Go to a trade show and see how many people are working on tablets in the lunch room.

As for the Surface, claiming it's a PC is just smoke and mirrors. It's no different from any other tablet with an attached keyboard. For Ballmer to suggest that 100 million Apple devices sold are just being used in front of the TV for web browsing is marketing bull. If the Surface can be used for work, so can any other tablet - and at least the others don't hose you $100 for the keyboard if you need it!

[Jah]

I don't find it easy to use spreadsheets on a tablet, but possible. No chance of usinng Visio on a tablet, but there are some drawing apps. I would actually contend that some PIM apps are better than Outlook (sans email). But for business at the end of the day, I use a windows 7 laptop. I think I could use a tablet if it had a real keyboard and mouse and could run the apps I use on my laptop.....

[David Choy]

REally kind of defeats the point. Ipads became successful precisely because they didn't do everything. The microsoft tablets before them tried to do everything and never achieved mainstream success.

It remains to be seen if Microsoft can avoid their prev mistakes. The confusion between RT and pro is not a good start

[Paul M]

the iPad is an excellent media consumption device - music, videos, web.

add on a keyboard and... you've got a macbook air ;-)

it's a shame that the new Asus Padfone2 has lost the keyboard dock and pen, otherwise it could have been great.

[Bug Blatter]

I can't take anything Ballmer says seriously.

MS has deliberately created something that does different things than anything else on the market. To then say that nothing else does these things is rather pointless; the real point is do people want to do these things?

Apple's Reality Distortion Field made people want the iPad; those people would figure out what to actually do with it later. Microsoft doesn't have that luxury.

Right now the normal Surface tablet is a Transformer Prime with a worse keyboard, MS Office and almost no other apps.

Not a good buy right now; hopefully the next one will have the hardware and apps right.

The Surface Pro could be another matter entirely.