5 ms·

I think you underestimate the dominance of MS Office, and the ability to use it as a selling point.

vetinari 14y ago
On tablet? No. Office requires high precision input devices (i.e. keyboard and mouse), which are precisely the devices that tablets do not have. Tablets are consumption devices; for productivity, you will still want laptop or desktop - without Metro.
- dpark 14y ago
  > Office requires high precision input devices (i.e. keyboard and mouse), which are precisely the devices that tablets do not have. Touch cover or type cover, perhaps. I haven't used either of these yet, but I believe this is one of the niches they are intended to fill.
  - vetinari 14y ago
    Transformer Prime owner here. It has a detachable keyboard, that while quite nice (it is a battery too, so no balancing problems!) is still a far cry from a keyboard on a proper laptop. (Btw., keyboard on Thinkpad X230 rocks, despite being chicklet). I'm working daily with Excel. If someone in IT would have the crazy idea to buy us tablets (even Surface) for that work, we would beat them with it. That's why I see the "Office on RT" as hyped nonsense.
    - dpark 14y ago
      It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking no one will buy X if it's not as good at Y as Z. (Here X, Y, Z = tablet, document editing, laptop.) A laptop will undoubtedly be better for document editing than a Windows RT tablet. But then, a full-blown desktop is better for document editing than a laptop yet desktop purchases are still plummeting. People won't buy a Windows RT tablet because it's the best at document editing. That might buy it because it's good enough at document editing, more portable than a laptop, and fun to play casual games on, though. (Of course it might meet an entirely different checklist for many.) I don't think anyone is expecting the Surface to replace your work computer. There are a lot of people torn between getting a tablet or a laptop, though, and for a sizable chunk of those people, Office RT + Touch/Type Cover might be a real selling feature.

On tablet? No. Office requires high precision input devices (i.e. keyboard and mouse), which are precisely the devices that tablets do not have. Tablets are consumption devices; for productivity, you will still want laptop or desktop - without Metro.

dpark 14y ago
> Office requires high precision input devices (i.e. keyboard and mouse), which are precisely the devices that tablets do not have. Touch cover or type cover, perhaps. I haven't used either of these yet, but I believe this is one of the niches they are intended to fill.
- vetinari 14y ago
  Transformer Prime owner here. It has a detachable keyboard, that while quite nice (it is a battery too, so no balancing problems!) is still a far cry from a keyboard on a proper laptop. (Btw., keyboard on Thinkpad X230 rocks, despite being chicklet). I'm working daily with Excel. If someone in IT would have the crazy idea to buy us tablets (even Surface) for that work, we would beat them with it. That's why I see the "Office on RT" as hyped nonsense.
  - dpark 14y ago
    It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking no one will buy X if it's not as good at Y as Z. (Here X, Y, Z = tablet, document editing, laptop.) A laptop will undoubtedly be better for document editing than a Windows RT tablet. But then, a full-blown desktop is better for document editing than a laptop yet desktop purchases are still plummeting. People won't buy a Windows RT tablet because it's the best at document editing. That might buy it because it's good enough at document editing, more portable than a laptop, and fun to play casual games on, though. (Of course it might meet an entirely different checklist for many.) I don't think anyone is expecting the Surface to replace your work computer. There are a lot of people torn between getting a tablet or a laptop, though, and for a sizable chunk of those people, Office RT + Touch/Type Cover might be a real selling feature.