While the Microsoft Surface tablet wowed consumers and techies alike when it was announced Monday, the founder of Acer and a former Dell CEO seem to have doubts about the tablet’s viability. Acer founder Stan Shih says he believes the company has no intention to get into the hardware market and that the Microsoft Surface is just a ploy to garner interest in Windows 8 as a tablet operating system. While many have speculated this, former Dell CEO Kevin Rollins had much harsher words for the announcement.
“I don’t know that customers are begging for a Microsoft-based system. They are very happy with Apple and very happy with Android. The one thing going for Microsoft is they do have a large corporate base. It’ll just be a matter of whether a Windows 8 system is going to be that desirable by customers and employees in a new market where to a great extent employees are going to start buying their own tablet and that will be the device they use at work and at home. They might not have a choice. Microsoft may be locked out too.”
Ouch. Harsh words from two major companies that are expected to release their own Windows 8 tablets in the coming months. What do you think? Is the Surface viable in the consumer market or is it something the corporate world will eat up and that’ll be the end of it?
