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Jonathon Distad of Perficient’s Portal and Social Media national business unit recently commented in LinkedIn: “I have seen the windows 8 computer twice today and want to get rid of my iPad. The UI and nearly everything is better about it. My mother in law would even learn to use it without training. Realized how dated the 10 yo Apple UI and ecosystem is”
Trying to run alongside the buzz of the Apple Mini-iPad was the release of Microsoft Windows 8 on the new Surface tablet and Windows Phone 8.  Many see this as Microsoft’s last effort to become relevant within the mobile world. Besides Jonathon, there are others who have been fairly impressed with Windows 8 UI, especially in its touch form, more specially the Windows Phone 8 UI on HTC 8x or the Nokia Lumia 920.  However, unlike the Motorola Razr whose design broke new ground in terms of thinness and appearance and becoming widely popular, the flagship Windows 8 phones are not going to cause iPhone and Android users to cast aside their current devices and adopt a Windows 8 phone.  While the HTC 8x compares favorably to the current Apple and Samsung offerings, the Nokia 920 has been described as “hefty” and “a brick” due to its wireless charging plate. When you add that to the lack of apps in the Microsoft App Store compared to Apple and Android, there just does not seem to be a bright future for Windows 8 Phone other that fighting it out with Blackberry for a small piece of market share not gobbled up by the behemoths due to the hardware it runs on.  On the other hand, Microsoft may be able to actually make inroads into the tablet market due to the characteristics that Microsoft 8 Phone does not have, unique hardware design and a critical app.
Obviously, the hardware design is the Surface’s unique keyboard, but maybe more important, the main attraction for the Surface tablet has to be the availability of Microsoft Office for the first time on a tablet. While you are not going to compose War and Peace on a Surface tablet, having Office allows the Surface to be the businessperson’s “go-to” tablet when they have a spare 20 minutes at the airport or between meetings and want to quickly review/edit documents or a financial plan.  A Surface most likely will not replace all the iPads you see at soccer games, swim meets, etc but I believe Microsoft would be happy to make serious inroads in the enterprise/business area (where they have always been strong) where the iPad has also dominated due to the lack of a serious competitor.  The jury is still out right now on its initial success but it will be interesting to see where the Microsoft Surface is in the second half of 2013, after companies have purchased a few and figured out what advantages it has by giving it to a number of their road-warrior business people and see which they prefer.