I think the biggest thing that Apple got right that Microsoft is in danger of not getting right is that people should have different expectations for a tablet.

I think the biggest thing that Apple got right that Microsoft is in danger of not getting right is that people should have different expectations for a tablet. I agree. Managing the expectations of what people should be doing on the different form factors is going to be important. If all you need to do is update one small item on the iPad, it's doable. I certainly wouldn't want to use a version of Excel that was designed for a PC on a tablet. It would be a horrible user experience. The only way to make it workable is to write something from scratch. Sure, it could read and write .xlsx files, but under the hood, it would need to be very different. Again, you're making the assumption that it was designed for a PC. I think they'll think through both use cases and expose the right functionality at the right times. (Yes, this is an assumption that gives MS the benefit of the doubt but given how important Office is to their profitability, I'm comfortable with this assumption.) Also, it wouldn't need to be very different under the hood. It would just need to be different UI. Yes, bigger buttons isn't going to cut it but UI is so much more than just 'bigger buttons'. One of Microsoft's problems with Tablet PCs in the early 2000s was that they were PCs. Because of this, they needed to have all of the horsepower to run Windows and still be portable enough to use as a tablet. This meant that they were always expensive. iPads on the other hand don't need to run a full copy of OSX, so they can be much lighter, smaller, and cheaper (than a Mac). You've definitely got a point there. They'll need to address this head-on. The best line in the Gruber piece is this: You can’t make something conceptually lightweight if it’s carrying 25 years of Windows baggage Agreed, though not completely. Making selective cuts would allow them to maintain the same code base for tablets and desktops. It might actually result in a better desktop experience. Microsoft may be primarily selling to corporate clients and OEMs, but they will still be competing with iOS and Android tablets in terms of mindshare and expectations. Agreed, which is why I'm excited to see the new UI. Not sure how far they are going to be willing to push things in order to compete on the excitement factor and winning consumers over.