Microsoft’s Surface Tablet event is worth watching. Lots of telling bits here. It’s a decent overall event (besides starting over 30 minutes late), though Ballmer is not a great presenter. Microsoft put a lot of thought into the design and materials it used, and portraying that fact well to the audience.
A lot of details are missing, though, such as a price, date, and wireless connectively, but perhaps most importantly: third-party apps besides Netflix. Considering how large and significant of a change Metro is, how much time Microsoft has spent hyping Windows 8, and how long it’s been available as a “public preview,” they should’ve been falling over themselves to show off a staggering variety of apps that are already available and some great stuff still in the oven. I know they’re out there, I’ve seen some.
Apps are the key to any ecosystem these days, and have long been trumpeted (whether rightly or wrongly) as one of the advantages of Windows—yet Microsoft barely said a peep about them at what is probably its most important product announcement of the last decade.
