With New Tablet, Microsoft Faces a Balancing Act

The following is an excerpt from an article in:


The New York Times
Friday, October 26, 2012

With New Tablet, Microsoft Faces a Balancing Act

By NICK WINGFIELD

Microsoft, the world’s best-known software company, is now in the business of making its own computers. That could get complicated.

The delicate balancing act Microsoft must perform was apparent at two events it held on Thursday in New York to introduce two major products. At the first event, it showcased devices made by Samsung, Dell and other hardware partners that run Windows 8, a version of Microsoft’s flagship operating system redesigned to accommodate touch-based devices like tablets.

An hour later, in a different area of the same location, a pier on the Hudson River, Microsoft focused entirely on Surface, a Windows tablet of its own design and the first computer the company has made in its 37-year history.

The separate events allowed Microsoft to spotlight devices made by others without awkwardly upstaging them with Surface. But executives left little doubt as to which computer was their favorite. At the Surface event, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows division, described the product as the best tablet and laptop he had ever used. (The company is selling a magnetically attached cover for Surface that doubles as a notebook-size keyboard.)

“We decided to do Surface because it’s the ultimate expression of Windows,” Mr. Sinofsky said. “It’s a stage.”

Microsoft saw a need for a major change in both the design of Windows and its strategy for delivering it to customers after the huge success of Apple in the tablet market. The iPad is already stealing sales from laptop computers, and Apple’s chief executive has predicted that the tablets will one day outsell PCs.

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