I just got back from TechEd in Orlando, and what concerns me was the almost total lack of acknowledging that the iPad exists. They talked about tablets in general terms and of course were touting machines that will run Windows 8. And I get it- all they can do is promote their stuff. That being said, talking about tablets and promising developers tools to develop on these platforms without even mentioning the iPad is essentially ignoring the elephant in the room and it's hard to treat the presenters as credible sources of information.

I mean just a simple, "guys, we know the iPad is huge and it's a platform a lot of your potential customers use, but we are confident based on studies that Windows 8 tablets will rival iPads by the year 2014 and you will have a solid customer base to which you can sell your software" would have at least allowed for hope that MS is on top of things. Right now it seems like they are playing catch up and don't even realize it.