Ballmer On His Way Out, Surface: One More Kick At The Can

So, in a recent interview, Ballmer says Microsoft must seize crucial opportunities in cloud computing services, online subscriptions to Office, and search engine Bing. Really? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say Microsoft should have seized those opportunities, and now is in danger of losing out in those markets? I wonder if Bill Gates is disappointed in how his company has been handled by this used car salesman who latched onto him in Harvard. One can only hope the new CEO will manage to salvage what's left.

Microsoft surface/surface2: tablet or net book with touch screen? Microsoft's engineers just can't seem to get out of the laptop paradigm. The surface is supposed to be a tablet, but is it? Let's look closely at it. First off, it comes with a keyboard as a physical component of the device, not an add-on, like with most other tablets. Now, Microsoft believes this to be a positive, because business consumers want a keyboard. But the very fact that it has a keyboard takes it out of the tablet category and puts it back in the notebook/netbook category. Second, look at the OS. It's not a true mobile OS like iOS or android. It's an adaptation of a desktop OS, designed to work with a touchscreen. Another feature that takes surface out of the tablet category and puts it back into the netbook category. Hell, it even has a trackpad. If Microsoft's marketing department thinks this is what consumers want, they should do two things: look at the success of other tablets that don't have these features, and; market the surface in the netbook category. Personally, I would think the surface's dismal sales thus far should have been enough to convince them that what they think customers want is inaccurate.

~Mahalo~