Indeed a tough road, but your point here is what I find very interesting: tablet's market is VERY similar to that of the console, and from this perspective a consle-like approach could make very much sense. It seems to me that an almost irrelevant minority buys a tablet for what it can do (and indeed it can do good things) - no stats or sources here. Just my best guess -. Most people buy a tablet because it is "fun", because of the games and apps available. Or for what it means socially, or because of some form of peer pressure; or so that "children play with it". I have tens (actually more!) of example in my mind right now where people I know got the iPad for the very same reasons why you would buy a new wrist watch, or a new a bit expensive toy (like a console). Most people I know or hear of, don't have clue of what a Tablet is when they buy it, and yet they do. It's the "to do" thing these days. Clearly it is a set of people who are not in this BBS.
This is entirely different than the PC market.
Microsoft needs to have people touch and feel for themselves how "fun" it is to use a WinRT/8 device (assuming it is. I literally loved using it like no other OS ever, but others supposedly hated it like no other OS ever), and create a social phenomenon around it.
You won't beat the iPad with features only (unfortunately), or price/performance ratios. You have to put it in technologically unaware ppl's hands first, and then make it "cool".
See, now that I think about it, it seems to me that what they also really, really need is a great Facebook App. The iPad one is very limited, Android one is too, WP one is just as bad. Once an hypotetical Facebook App for SurfaceRT becomes widely known as "great", Surface RT will sell like bread for $500, I think I am being sarcastic here, of course, but the idea behind the joke seems to be quite valid, if I observe ppl around me. I'd be curious to read some more accurate mkt research.


A very tough road, and not at all a crazy one.