Given that the Microsoft Surface is in many ways a logical extension of my thesis work, I was personally surprised that I wasn't overly enthusiastic about it. The main reason was that the demonstrations shown were prototype-worthy, not production ready. They showed they potential of the technology. For example, the photo application showed pulling out photos from a wireless enabled camera, and re-arranging them on the table. But there was no indication of how that would scale to thousands of photos. For any of the applications mentioned, I could not see the intrinsic advantage of the table top format as compared to a (non-multi-)touch-activated LCD screen. Do retailers seriously expect the Surface to drive sales?
Apple's iPhone was announced just before the Surface. In that device, I could see the need to have a multi-touch screen. Moreover, Apple presented the device with a thought-out OS and a set of useful applications. If Microsoft had presented the Surface in such a way - as a truly new computing platform - then I would have been much more enthusiastic about it.
In any case, Microsoft is now set to release the Surface to stores. I would still like to see it in action!
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