[latch]

   Microsoft this week showed itself willing to do what was once unthinkable: design and sell its own computer hardware

What about the Zune, Kin and Xbox. Two of them might have been disasters, but clearly MS has a history of designing hardware.

They are giving too much choice (1). To me, the real issue is availability. They shouldn't have had the press conference until the device was available on the same day. They _always_ do this, and it rarely works out. They would have sold more devices in the first week, had it been available immediately, then they now will in a quarter.

(1) http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...

[gnaffle]

The Zune, Kin an Xbox weren't devices sold in Microsofts primary market.

And you can see how they have done what they can in order to not screw over the hardware manufacturers, by promising to only sell the device through their retails stores.

..and now HP and Mark Hurds initial strategy with WebOS doesn't seem so stupid after all.

[SoftwareMaven]

I agree (about too much choice). Opinions make great products (think Apple, python, 37 Signals), but Microsoft appears to be trying to hedge their bets in every regard. Unfortunately, that rarely (if ever) works out.

That said, if it can do what they claimed and the price isn't stupid, I'll have one (then replace my MacBook Air with a MBPro). I'm not holding my breath, though. I've lost all faith in "product announcements" that don't actually have the product.

MS has all of the engineering talent to make this happen. I'm far from convinced that they have the leadership talent to make Surface a true success[1].

1. In this case, true success means taking an appreciative percentage of the market and inspiring changes in competitors' products (meaning they are thought leaders). MS is so large in the enterprise space that they may be able to turn this into many sales, but that doesn't mean they will be the ones pulling us into the future.

[ZeroGravitas]

People who actually owned one seemed to quite like the Zune. On the other hand if we're calling it a disaster based on amount of money made then the XBox project still has to prove itself on that score, it's not totally clear that they've made back their $10+ Billion investment yet (in part because of poor hardware QA)

[antidoh]

"What about the Zune, Kin and Xbox."

They abandoned two of those.