“Microsoft Corp.’s Surface tablet computer, unveiled this week to compete with Apple Inc.’s iPad, will initially go on sale without a connection to mobile-phone networks, according to two people familiar with the matter,” Ian King and Dina Bass report for Bloomberg. “Microsoft is equipping the device with a Wi-Fi short-range connection, said the people, who declined to be named because the full specifications of the new product have yet to be made public.”
“Apple, the market leader in tablets, began selling a new iPad in March with the fastest cellular connection, known as long-term evolution, or LTE [4G],” King and Bass report. “Since it first went on sale in 2010, the iPad has had the option of a mobile-phone chip, which lets users access the Internet almost anywhere there is network coverage. Apple also sells a Wi-Fi-only iPad model.”
“Microsoft’s decision may enable it to keep costs down, said Ben Bajarin, an analyst at technology consulting firm Creative Strategies. Still, it could curtail the company’s efforts to promote Surface as a device you can use anywhere and in any way, Bajarin said,” King and Bass report. “‘The way that Microsoft is positioning this product — that it’s highly mobile but also has the functionality of a notebook — that customer might be more interested in working from any location and not being bound by Wi-Fi,’ said Bajarin.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Microsoft has gone from not only punching their suffering users in the face daily with their mediocre, frustrating, failure-prone wares to punching themselves in the face, too.
The “customer might be more interested in working from any location and not being bound by Wi-Fi.”
You can say that again, Ben!
Microsloth’s latest debacle, Blurry Ass Tablet™, is going to be more fun than even we expected!
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No WWAN radio, but you can use a hand crank to generate Wi-Fi signal.
Each Surface tablet comes with a retractible coil of string. When pulled taught and connected to another Surface tablet you are able to effortless transmit data between devices.
Empty tomato soup cans available for an additional fee.
Of course this is their strategy. Why would they want to compete with a consumer tablet, they are trying to create a niche business tablet/laptop, they don’t want you playing games or watching movies or videoconferencing. They want to create a need for their bloated software cash cows, nothing else. But RIM already shower then the pitfalls of the with Playbook, but Playbook was too telecom centered to succeed.
A nonstarter. Once again right out of the gate Ballmy shoots himself and his company in the foot and blows the whole thing off! It’s hilarious contemplating their next bumbling incompetent act of senseless self-destruction. High entertainment.
Sadly this might be the end of the run for balmer. Shareholders aren’t going to take this sitting down.
“Microsoft Corp.’s Surface tablet computer, unveiled this week to compete with Apple Inc.’s iPad, will initially go on sale…”
This is where I stopped reading. We’ll see if it ever really does go on sale…
Isn’t that what windows phone is for?
Love the Ballmer pic. 🙂
Me too!
It is hard for me to wrap my head around that guy being worth billions.
Yep. Is that injustice or what. Stupidity should not pay that well.
The luckiest dormitory room assignment in the history of higher learning of the entire world.
(and for those who don’t know what I’m talking about: Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates were roommates in college).
You betcha. Ballmer would be heading up some Kia dealership right now if it wasn’t for that roommate assignment.
So MS thinks there is some market for a half breed between tablet and laptop that they are going after.
WiFi only goes well with sitting at a desk in order to type on the screen protector – keyboard. Curious, is the keyboard included or is it a $99 add on?
Likely an add-on. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t, especially given that it’s available in different colors. My guess is that they will offer a discount when you buy them together… but just a guess.
Was expecting this to link to theonion.com
First iPad was wifi only for a month or so.
But when you’re almost 3years behind? Bad idea.
It still amazes me that this is the best MS can do 30 months after the iPad announcement and five years after the iPhone.
“WI-FI only is not a limitation for Surface.”
“The sky is not blue.”
I wanted MS to to succeed for competitions sake, but sadly this thing is going fail miserably. It actually looks like MS as a whole is imploding before our eyes. At least they still have a popular word processor and spreadsheet app.
There is no spot on it for ‘G’…?
This actually feels like RIM dejavu. First everyone was in denial because the top enterprise smartphone could not possibly be unseated….
Anyone with MS stock would be wise to start shedding some fat. It was a good run while it lasted. Nothing lasts forever. It’s time to start thinking about taking the money and running.
Oh, but wait … they will sell it to Farsi speaking chaps.
“Microsoft’s Surface tablet said to be Wi-Fi only at launch; no 4G, no 3G, no 2G, not even 1G”
1G will be the price.
Well played
I’d love to have been in Microsoft’s “brainstorming” or “design review” meeting on this bad boy. Or anything they make actually.
It must be the craziest thing to witness.
Look at the bright side. It’s not brown.
Something tells me that even MDN gets tired of bashing Ballmer and mainly does it because they know the users likes it.
This MDN?!?!
You must be relatively new here.
If Microsloth would create something not feature poor, lame ass, and bashable, that would solve the problem now wouldn’t it?
Epic fail?
Anyone remember “Origami” ? ROTFLMFAO
I had forgotten all about it and had to search for it.
Yes, it was a joke, but Surface will be a bigger joke – figuratively and in several literal ways.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/24/microsofts-origami-project/
Vaporware… of the classic type.
The only thing Balmer knows is hype. He must do something as he is now going on 3 years late to the pad party.
By the time the MS SURFace surfaces, it is going to be so far behind, no one can see it except in the discount bins with Play Books and TouchPads.
The Board of Directors of MS ought to get some balls along with Bill Gates and fire SB. But then again, MS might improve after that, so lets just keep the old aggressive authoritarian salesman.
To paraphrase Jules from Pulp Fiction:
Dead as fried chicken.
So, MS dribbles along, claiming that tablets are not that big of a deal, then suddenly finds themselves rushing Sewerface® so much that only have what was essentially prototype for the announcement AND they can’t even get the cell-enabled devices ready for launch.
That’s just good corporate planning.
C’mon guys. It runs on squirt technology.
Interesting. I thought light, compact, portability was the main goal of any tablet device. Guess Microsloth doesn’t understand that feature.
They should redesign it as a vacuum cleaner. At least it wouldn’t suck so much.
But, but it has two dual antennas. The guy in the video said so.