14 DAY TRIAL // We all know that seeing such a powerful company like Microsoft getting involved in the hardware business is not at all good news for the other manufacturers already competing in this particular market, but the Redmond-based technology titan says its partners have nothing to worry about.
Peter S. Klein, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference that both the Surface RT and the Surface Pro could help the other manufacturers on the market improve their efforts in the Windows 8 ecosystem.
“As technology evolves... the ability to work closely between the boundaries between hardware and software allows us to innovate in ways in which we couldn't before,” he said, according to ITProPortal.
Acer is one of the companies that have often criticized Microsoft’s efforts to expand in the hardware industry, saying that it should better focus on the software market where it’s already the number one vendor.
“They are doing something to kill the whole ecosystem. They have all this cash. They could kill everybody,” Acer CEO JT Wang said in a statement in October.
But Microsoft isn’t willing to abandon the hardware industry, even though the first Surface Pro and Surface RT reviews aren’t quite encouraging.
The company is currently working on expanding the Surface product lineup, so new tablets may see daylight in the upcoming months or years.
“I think we're really set up to deliver the most versatile set of experiences across form factors,” said Klein.
Microsoft is also believed to prepare a Surface laptop that would be based on the Surface Pro, but would obviously feature a larger screen. Klein hinted that several form factors may be adopted for future products, but he avoided to specifically mention that a laptop was currently in the works.
“What the ultimate form factors will be is uncertain, but we're set up to respond to demand,” Klein explained, emphasizing that Microsoft will release exactly the devices consumers are asking for.