I think your first point is important – what else is Acer going to do? For PCs, their only choice to use Windows. They may not like it, but they have no options.

For tablets, they could make Android tablets. However, Google just put out a 7″ Nexus and they own Motorola. Android tablet makers are not really in a much different position.

MS has long talked about partners and making everything work together forever at the cost of ease of use and robust reliability. I think MS learned a little from the Plays for Shit debacle. They went to Zune way too late. Surface is pretty late, but it really isn’t a tablet, it’s a ultrabook/tablet tweener.

I think the best Acer, etc can hope for is to play nice and hope they get to manufacture Surface for MS.

Wow! Who knew?

I see your point, but I think Microsoft was looking at this in terms of the chicken-egg scenario wherein they have no market share, and their partners were producing crap and even still more focused on Android.

Microsoft bribed Nokia as a (failed) hail mary pass to get into phones, but there hope with tablets is to do it themselves and get enough traction that hopefully their partners can address the market.

Keep in mind that Microsoft is doing some non-traditional things here, like only making the Surface available at their retail stores. Don’t be surprised if the Surface “sells out”, as that’s Microsoft trying to build demand for the platform that will bleed out to their partners.

Not that I think their strategy will work, but it’s the best shot they’ve got. Otherwise, it’s like when they released Played-For-Sure…their partners sucked and Apple took the market. Or when WP7 came out…there wasn’t any traction since partners were already going with Android.

† = Hey, Steve had his reality distortion field, so I’m entitled to my echo chamber.

Nobody could make as many bad decisions as Ballmer unless he is trying to destroy the company.

My guess is the Ides of March. March 15 2013.

True, but the “Surface” is definitely not what’s best for MS…

http://www.acronymattic.com/OEM.html

OTOH, if MS listens and cancels Surface, that’s corporate suicide in their eyes of their customers. If MS has a huge press event, and *still* cancels the product, they will massively lose credibility, even from die-hard fans. That probably won’t happen, though.

I think they just really wanted to look like Apple, and they didn’t think any farther ahead than that…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Emergency_Management

If Microsoft is intent on going into competition with its former partners, those partners will no longer have a sustainable business model for that sector.

Microsoft will either have to succeed without partners ( like Apple does ) or find a way to keep those partners in business.

Obviously Microsoft does not have a duty of care towards other companies, but it’s current business model relies on selling licences to partners, so although the relationship is unequal, they still need each other. The PC business is fragile and the non-Apple tablet business is unprofitable. A company can’t survive for long without profits.

It is not something you are good at

Everything they do is not something they are good at!

The real question that Microsoft has to think twice about, is whether releasing Surface helps to create an ecosystem or whether leaving it up to the partners is enough.

It’s a hail mary pass for them to release the Surface, but that doesn’t make it foolish, just desperate. While the Surface is no iPad, it’s much better (from a non-functioning distance and incomplete specs) than what their partners were showing.

So, when Acer goes on record and delivers a carefully cushioned threat to MS, it is clear how furious OEMs are at MS for doing a “Play-For-Sure” on them again.

Forget about companies who leach off of you. Do what is best for your company.
If you create an ecosystem, they will flock to you because they can make money. If you don’t, they will drop you like a hot potato.

lol what, exactly, is Ballmer T Clown good at? Woulda been nice to see him in the Olympic Chair Throwing Competition.

This whole Surface fiasco is looking more foolhardy all the time.