Panos Panay talks Surface and tablet efforts at Microsoft

Apr 2, 2015 11:02 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft used the recently launched Surface 3 tablet to kill two birds with one stone. First of all, it expands the Surface product line with new models, trying to continue its adventure towards becoming a devices and services firm. And second of all, it shows the world that it's really serious about tablets, despite the issues that it came across in the past.

Panos Panay, the man in charge of the Surface division, talked about Microsoft's tablets in an interview with CNN, pointing out that everyone at the company is well-aware of everything that went wrong with the first Surface models.

But that doesn't mean anything, he explained, although he knows that the $900 million (€730 million) write-down that the company had to make to adjust inventories of unsold Surface RT units would never go away.

"You know, that billion dollar write-down will never go away. Those lessons learned from it will always be unbelievably valuable. But the lessons learned when you get a little success with a product -- those don't go away either. That balance of learning has made us feel really good going into the next product."

The Surface RT indeed failed

The very first Surface model, called Surface RT, was launched in October 2012 together with Windows 8, but was powered by Windows RT, a stripped-down version of the operating system that only worked with Modern apps published in the store.

The Surface RT failed to meet expectations and actually caused more harm than good to the company, with Redmond finally turning to a write-down because of unsold units.

But Microsoft managed to get over it, Panay explained, and although the Surface RT was clearly a failure, the tech giant learned from its mistakes to build new and more advanced tablet models.

"We go full speed, and sometimes we might be going in the wrong direction and that's OK," Panay pointed out. "If you fail, this company is amazing. They will support you. You just have to learn about it. If you take some shots out there, you might come back with some beautiful things."

Right now, Microsoft has two different Surface models on the market, namely the Surface 3 and Surface Pro 3, both of which are supposed to help replace a laptop. More models are expected to be launched very soon, including a smaller Surface and even a bigger one serving as a better replacement for a laptop.