Microsoft pulled the curtain back on a bold new hardware initiative yesterday: the Surface tablet. Here’s Microsoft’s official press release on the topic. And here are a bunch of people explaining why it’s awesome:
Gizmodo says it “made the Macbook Air and the iPad look obsolete.”
Joshua Topolsky says it signifies the start of Microsoft’s “next chapter.”
VentureBeat’s John Koetsier has an unexpectedly moving write-up on this product’s significance:
There’s something quintessentially American about Microsoft. Start, grow, fight, claw, win. Get knocked down, get back up. Fight again, lose again. Get mocked, laughed at, ridiculed, and ignored. But never give up. Never say die. Never stop believing that the dream is possible … that you can do it.
There’s not much I can add to the chorus, other than that I was impressed with the secrecy that the company was able to maintain around the product. Much of the speculating by the press was either partially or totally incorrect. I certainly didn’t know what was about to be announced and I imagine the same is true of many in the company. For an organization as big as ours, they kept a super tight lid on things, and that was impressive.
It’s so incredibly exciting to be working for a company that has the entire tech press excited about a product launch. May it be the first of many.