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Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface

wired.com

21–30 of 62 posts

Re: Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface

#23
post #15

Wow, looks awesome and for business, the ability to use Microsoft office is the "killer app", as much as I dislike ppt and word and wheel they are the staples of most companies so the lack if office on iPad is hurting it for business users and this will be just what they are looking for. I am glad to see a new player (although msft are well experienced at touch computers) and excited to get my hands on one. They hit…

Isn't Microsoft planning to release an iOS version of Office sometime soon? Seems there was some leaked screenshots shown last month.

If this is the case, it makes the office integration less of a selling point.

Re: Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface

#24
post #4

> Yes, you can use it as your only computer. I would never have made that claim about an iPad or Android tablet. But if you only need to live in Microsoft Office and the web and e-mail, and use your computer for media consumption, you’ll do great with this. So an "only computer" requires Microsoft Office, everything else is negotiable.

For our CEO and GM, that's true. Add a citrix client and it could be an only computer for the rest of our staff except for me.

Re: Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface

#25
post #15

Wow, looks awesome and for business, the ability to use Microsoft office is the "killer app", as much as I dislike ppt and word and wheel they are the staples of most companies so the lack if office on iPad is hurting it for business users and this will be just what they are looking for. I am glad to see a new player (although msft are well experienced at touch computers) and excited to get my hands on one. They hit…

unfortunately, these devices have no AD integration, or other Enterprise deployment stuff that typically makes windows appealing to businesses.

Re: Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface

#27
post #15

Wow, looks awesome and for business, the ability to use Microsoft office is the "killer app", as much as I dislike ppt and word and wheel they are the staples of most companies so the lack if office on iPad is hurting it for business users and this will be just what they are looking for. I am glad to see a new player (although msft are well experienced at touch computers) and excited to get my hands on one. They hit…

OneNote on Windows RT could be the killer app that makes me want one.

I want a sketchpad, handwriting recognition, the ability to insert audio clips and videos and images, OCR for text in those images... in fact let me take a photo, paste it in and then extract the text in the photo... quick text tools with basic formatting... and all of this should be searchable, shareable, integrated.

That's OneNote.

On the desktop I always felt OneNote was being held back. It begged and screamed for a tablet to bring it alive.

The only thing that makes the Surface compelling for me is: Does it have a full-featured OneNote?

Unfortunately the reality is that OneNote falls short just a little.

Surface has OneNote MX which is a version of OneNote that doesn't have feature parity with the desktop version.

And that sucks, as if it did Microsoft would have me buying a Windows OS once again, just for that application.

Re: Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface

#28
post #15

Wow, looks awesome and for business, the ability to use Microsoft office is the "killer app", as much as I dislike ppt and word and wheel they are the staples of most companies so the lack if office on iPad is hurting it for business users and this will be just what they are looking for. I am glad to see a new player (although msft are well experienced at touch computers) and excited to get my hands on one. They hit…

I think the Surface with Windows 8 Pro (perhaps its second generation since current one's too bulky) is a killer business product. Put it down on a table with the keyboard, and it's a fully-powered laptop! Pick it up and fold back the keyboard, and it's a fully-powered tablet!

Re: Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface

#29
post #15

Wow, looks awesome and for business, the ability to use Microsoft office is the "killer app", as much as I dislike ppt and word and wheel they are the staples of most companies so the lack if office on iPad is hurting it for business users and this will be just what they are looking for. I am glad to see a new player (although msft are well experienced at touch computers) and excited to get my hands on one. They hit…

unfortunately, these devices have no AD integration, or other Enterprise deployment stuff that typically makes windows appealing to businesses.

Agreed this is a real issue, but a professional buying a device personally is unlikely to care about those bits of the puzzle. Compared to the existing tablet market, Windows RT is significantly better in terms of enterprise integration.

Re: Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface

#30
The tech industry is really fleshing out every form factor between phone and full sized laptop now.

As others have said this could fill a niche for who only need office in terms of productivity tools and also want the benefits of a tablet. So as well as business people students would fit that niche.

Personally though for anything productivity wise I am going to be happy to carry around a laptop, any tablet usage is purely as a consumer.

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