Having recently been walked through the use of a Microsoft Surface RT, I am beginning to see the ambition of the proposition.
First of all, the Surface RT is beautifully made device. It is somewhat heavy, but not unwieldy. Its magnesium alloy case is sturdy and reassuring and the general fit and finish is superb, and matches any device on the market, irrespective of the logo attached. And the same goes for the cover keyboard, though I would say that there is more than a little Don Draper influence in the almost tweed grey cover supplied.
After an impressive demonstration of the features of Windows 8 on the RT, I had to ask where the device fit in the arsenal of the average knowledge worker, as it is clearly a companion device and yet, with the cover keyboard and a full version of Office 2013 aboard, it also has the potential to be much more.
Patrick Ward, Windows business manager, Microsoft explained that the Surface RT is indeed a companion device, but one that is equally capable of processing documents if need be, or being handed in confidence to your children to play a game, having been logged-in in a highly configurable under 18 profile.
Ward said that the RT sits comfortably alongside a Windows 8 device such as a laptop, slate or desktop as the synchronisation options allow you to select what is synchronised to which device, ensuring that you control the lines between work and play without restriction of either.
With impressive demonstrations of streaming movie services from the RT to a large screen TV and back, and the same between the RT and an Xbox, it is clear that it can be an integral part of home entertainment, but as Mike Hughes, business group lead, Office Division, Microsoft, then showed the philosophy of Windows 8 in flattening out the operating system (OS) has been carried on through Office 2013.
Office 2007 had long been criticised for its Ribbon navigation system that went beyond the old inverted tree structure for menu organisation. The 2010 version developed on the idea and now Office 2013 has gone a step further. This time, the ribbon remains hidden until called upon to select a task. In Word for example, there’s a minimal selection of menu items across the top of the frame, such as File, Home, Insert, Design, Layout etc, and when clicked on the familiar ribbon slides down with the full array of options, though the most commonly used and context sensitive ones are offered first to save time.
Hughes said that the emphasis is on giving as much screen room to the primary display and options as possible. This is further facilitated by a mode switch between touch and mouse to optimise the experience irrespective of your interface choice. Microsoft’s unified communications platform Lync is now integrated with all aspects of Office 2013 too, ensuring that collaboration is facilitated at every turn.
Sharepoint also gets an overhaul and becomes a social media hub as much as a collaboration hub, building on users’ familiarity with the likes of LinkedIn and other social media tools to ease adoption and get people productive quickly.
Administration of Sharepoint has also been made easier and more accessible, ensuring that the new freedom of users to create their own work and collaboration spaces is appropriate to their tasks and the information they are using.
Search from within applications has also been improved and allows users to find things more easily, whether that is information, documents or people with whom to share and collaborate.
So, there appears to a fairly deliberate blurring of the lines here between the various devices. The iPad has long been criticised as being a great consumption device and a poor creation device, or at least one that needs serious accessorising to become a reasonable creation device. And this is something that Apple has seemed fairly comfortable with, and only lately, and somewhat begrudgingly, tackled.
The Surface RT has been intentionally designed to be more than a consumption device, to be a creation device if required. Few people, beyond students or fairly light users, will be using the Surface RT as a primary computing device, but it still has the capability to get the job done, should it be the only option. However, in combination with a Windows 8 Pro device, it completes a spectrum of capability that was not readily available previously.
Coming late to the tablet party, this was probably a necessary step for Microsoft as just putting out something as good as an iPad was not going to work-as Samsung, Asus, Acer, Lenovo and many others have found to their cost. What is needed to be noticed in the crowded tablet market is something different-and the Surface RT is certainly that.
As my colleague has already pointed out, it will not be an easy market for Microsoft to crack, and the Surface devices, the RT and its just released in the US Pro stablemate, have yet to be sales successes. I suspect they will be, but in a long tail manner.
My worry is that when I asked the question of where it fits, I had an expert either side of me with a range of devices, demonstrations and all the answers. Will someone standing in a shop or looking at a web site get it?
I’ll be doing a full review of the Surface RT as part of a Windows 8 for the IT pro feature in ComputerScope, where I’ll be roadtesting it in conjunction with a Windows 8 Pro slate, also taking a more in depth look at Office 2013 in that context too.
I’ll be evaluating the claims of how the various devices work, and work together, to see if it all stacks up in making the average knowledge worker more productive.
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