Why Microsoft's "Surface" Tablet/Netbook Will Succeed

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By Dennis D. McDonald

Why will Microsoft’s “Surface” tablet/netbook computer succeed, especially in large organizations and schools? Forget about words like “innovation,” “gamechanging,” and “disruption.” The reasons for likely success are really quite simple. There are two.

Reason number one:

Reason number two:

.

Taken together these two product elements — MS Office and a keyboard — respond to the corporate decisionmaker’s dilemma, which can be boiled down to very simple requirements when considering new technology: 

“I want to be hip, innovative, and revolutionary and change how my organization works.”

and

“Can the thing run Word?”

There are still some hurdles, of course.

Sometimes being evolutionary instead of revolutionary means that there’s a lot of baggage that needs to be dragged along, accommodated, and paid for. I expect that integrating all those legacy apps and systems with the Surface will provide a lot of work for IT departments and consultants. I assume the big consulting firms and contractors already have marketing literature ready describing how tools such as the Surface can become part of one seamless, well oiled, enterprise machine alongside the already-accepted Microsoft architectures.

On the other hand, Microsoft’s willingness to “break the mold” with the new Windows 8 interface suggests there’s a lot of risk taking potential that may even extend to shaking up the vast ecosystem of co-dependent developers, integrators, and trainers that have grown up around its product family over the years. That may be the most profound change coming down the pike.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Dennis D. McDonald. Dennis consults on collaborative project management and technology strategy from Alexandria Virginia. Contact him by email at ddmcd@yahoo.com.

Comments

[Robyn Tippins]

Absolutely agree (and the adorable little keyboard is cool as heck too). Saw a great tweet today 'woh, microsoft made something cool' I think everyone sees this thing has teeth, and I'm actually happy for them. I like the underdog and they are finally that.

[Jim MacLennan]

I agree that Office integration and a keyboard may help adoption - but isn't that just extending the PC / desktop metaphor into a smaller / leaner form factor? Would really be interesting if someone came up with a way to get the embedded Office workers off of the expensive MS Office suite (and I know about LibreOffice and Google Docs etc ... I'm talking about something really different ...)

[Dennis D. McDonald]

Jim thank you for your comment.

Yes, my point was that the Surface basically just extends the PC/desktop metaphor into a "...smaller/leaner form factor." That's why it will succeed (if priced and supported correctly).

But I agree that something different is needed. We may already be seeing something different with the rise of cellphones and tablet computers in popularity. They are not just small more portable versions of laptops or desktops. For example, when I send emails now I try to keep in mind the likelihood my message will be read on a mobile device is high. I need to design the contents -- and the links I frequently include -- to be usable on both a mobile device and on a standard device. That means I'm modifying my behavior to accommodate the reality of how my messages are being received and in some cases acted upon. Extend the concept of that chain to other work related activities and ask what other activities are being modified at either end tor along the way o accommodate the different feature sets of the tools.