14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft last week presented the new Surface Pro 3 tablet, but it appears that some large companies have already contacted the Redmond-based giant, asking for information on the device and the way they can purchase it right away.
Panos Panay, the man in charge of the Surface division at Microsoft, said that BMW Group and The Coca-Cola Company discussed with company officials on a potential deal even before the public launch of the device on May 20, so they are very likely to go on and purchase Surface Pro 3s for some of their employees.
While there are no details about the number of tablets that could be sold by Microsoft as part of this deal, we learned that we could expect "thousands" of units to be shipped to BMW and Coca-Cola in the coming months.
Panay explained that Microsoft wasn't the one contacting the other companies in regard of Surface Pro 3 testing, but the companies themselves asked the Redmond firm about the possibility of building a tablet that could ultimately replace their laptops as well.
"While we’ve kept Surface Pro 3 largely under wraps ahead of this announcement, we did show it to a few companies who wanted a tablet that could take the place of laptops," Panay explained.
"We were blown away by the interest, and are excited to have BMW Group, The Coca-Cola Company and LVMH – Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton seeing it as a core device for them. They’ll all be deploying Surface Pro 3 devices in the future – in some cases planning to use it as a laptop replacement and in others looking at innovative ways to leverage its unique capabilities as a powerful tablet too."
The Surface Pro 3 is currently positioned as a laptop replacement, coming with a 12-inch screen and powerful hardware that could clearly help you perform the exact same tasks you do every day on a notebook.
The tablet is available in three different CPU models, including i3, i5, and i7, with up to 512 GB of storage space and 8 GB of RAM.
Of course, the Surface Pro 3 doesn't come cheap, so you might have to pay no less than $2,000 (1,500 euros) for the top-of-the-range version that includes plenty of storage space and enough RAM memory to cope with the requirements of software products such as Photoshop.
The Surface Pro 3 is already up for pre-order, but shipments will only begin in June or even in August, depending on the version you choose.