Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has admitted during a shareholder meeting that the company may have arrived too late to the tablet market, but he remains confident in Surface's potential.
The Windows 8-powered Surface tablet is the first personal computer created by Microsoft, but it launched a month ago, more than two and a half years after Apple released its original iPad. Android-powered tablets have also dominated the market in recent months.
During the meeting in question, Ballmer was asked why Microsoft had fallen so far behind Apple.
"We're innovating on the seam between software and hardware... Maybe we should have done that earlier," he said, noting that he felt "pretty good about [Microsoft's] level of innovation".
The executive also discussed a "sea of upside" for the company in the tablet market. He was referring to the fact that while Windows 7 did offer several touch-friendly features which attracted vendors to create tablets based on the OS, it didn't make its mark in the market itself.
Surface's exact sales figures has yet to be revealed by Microsoft, but the software titan stressed it'll be supporting the device for four more years.
The device's pre-order stages, meanwhile, did showcase its potential commercial breadth. Inventory for every variant of the tablet sold out following the cheapest version selling out in a day after pre-sales commenced.
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Zak Islam is a freelance writer focusing on security, networking, and general computing. His work also appears at Digital Trends and Tom's Guide.
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cats_Paw "Go home Balmer, you are drunk" comes to mind.Reply
I never understood why its CEOs who talk at shereholders meetings. Im quite sure Balmer does not know 5% of the stuff your regular Microsoft porgramer can tell you about Win 8. -
damianrobertjones Could one of the, 'highly respected' tech sites out there PLEASE tell us why nearly ALL of the Windows 8 tablets have been delayed again and again?Reply
Then again that would be journalistic practise to present such an article so I don't expect much. -
frombehind at least their being honest about it... not like apple lying their @$$es off about their sucky maps every step of the way -.-Reply -
vfunct Actually they arrived early to the tablet market.. they just sucked at the tablet market.Reply -
craig_1000 dangerismEven though they created the tablet market? What does this mean?Reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing
1991 - for a start then there was the failed attempt at
'Windows for Pen Computing was a software suite for Windows 3.1x, that Microsoft designed to incorporate pen computing capabilities into the Windows operating environment. Windows for Pen Computing was the second major pen computing platform for x86 tablet PCs; GO Corporation released their operating system, PenPoint OS, shortly before Microsoft published Windows for Pen Computing 1.0 in 1991.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_editions
look at the Tablet PC Edition of XP
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candrwhite "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has admitted during a shareholder meeting that the company may have arrived too late to the tablet market"Reply
May have? MAY HAVE? /facepalm