When Microsoft unveiled the Surface tablets we wondered what OEMs were thinking. It’s always interesting when a software company decides to make it’s own hardware because then they become a competitor with the hardware partners they usually rely on. Bill Gates has been quiet about Surface, but last night he went on Charlie Rose and had a few things to say about the situation.
I actually believe you can have the best of both worlds. You can have a rich eco-system of manufacturers and you can have a few signature devices that show off, wow, what’s the difference between a tablet and a PC?
We happen to agree with Gates on this one. Surface will not do significant harm to their partners like Asus, Samsung, and HP, but that’s not their goal. Surface, and other Microsoft-made devices, are there to show the partners what they should be doing with the software. Gates’ view is that the PC as we know it will become devices like Surface.
You can get everything you like about a tablet, everything you like a PC, all in one device. That should change the way people look at things.
Microsoft can’t always rely on partners to understand what they intend the software to do.
[via Business Insider]
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