PC Market – Surface to air.

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Further proof that the Surface Pro 3 is the winning design.

• Dell, HPQ, Accenture and Avanade have all signed up to sell and support the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and its descendants to their enterprise customers.
• This is despite the fact that it competes with their in-house designs.
• This is a strong endorsement of how important research and development has become in the PC market and underlines that Dell and HPQ continue to struggle with innovation (see here)
• This initiative is also incredibly important because it has the scope to take the Surface Pro from being a niche product and make it something that changes the landscape of mobile computing.
• I have believed for some time that the Surface Pro 3 is the first device that really renders the laptop form factor obsolete (see here).
• The main reason for this is that Microsoft has spent over $100m on working out how to cram the all the power and functionality of a desktop PC into a tablet form factor.
• The PC makers have come up with nothing more than laptops with a removable screen which have been rightly shunned by computer buyers.
• I believe the Surface Pro 3 is a revolutionary product as:
  • First. It is the only tablet on the market that truly obviates the need for a laptop.
  • Second. The use cases that are available such as a truly portable desktop (see here) and pen-based input offer the user meaningful improvements to the user experience when not in the office.
  • Third. The hardware has been designed to allow the user to get more out of Office and productivity applications in general.
  • In this regard it soundly beats anything else that is available in the market including the MacBook Air.
• The one area where this product fails badly is as a laptop but this is irrelevant as the whole point of this product is to offer something better.
• Unfortunately, Microsoft has been selling laptops for so long that it has marketed the Surface Pro 3 with the very average and very expensive type cover making it look like a laptop
• In my opinion, this is the worst use case for this product and in this configuration, a laptop is a better product in every regard except size and weight.
• Because Microsoft has chosen to market it this way, the users simply do not understand what this product is and what it is capable of.
• It is not until the user gets his hands on it that he can begin to understand what it is really capable of.
• With HPQ, Dell, Accenture and Avanade selling and supporting this product to the enterprise, the scope for this realisation to spread much more quickly is vastly improved.
• I have believed for some time that this is the key to recovery in the PC market in the medium term.
• Once the market realises that the laptop is obsolete, the replacement cycle of laptops is likely to quickly decrease from 5-7 years to something much shorter.
• This will cause a multi-year spike in PC shipments that is almost certain to be mistaken for a return to growth.
• In reality this will be a big product cycle that waxes and wanes.
• The capitulation by Dell and HPQ is also a strong signal that their products do not measure up and I am hoping that Microsoft is smart enough to allow all the PC makers to copy its design.
• It is this, combined with price reductions through design and volumes that will allow this to reach the mass market and pull the PC market out of its slump.
• Microsoft and Intel are the two most obvious beneficiaries from this but the rising tide of the PC market will float all boats.
• It has been far slower than I had hoped but there are at last some signs that things may yet come right.