微软狂想：消灭笔记本电脑

    根据微软（Microsoft）高层的说法，这家拥有101,914名员工、市值3,270亿美元的公司由一群梦想家组成，他们的使命是赋予大众以力量。

    在今天的Surface Pro 3平板电脑发布会上，微软首席执行官萨提亚•纳德拉和Surface部门领导帕诺斯•潘乃反复提到，利用微软这款新型移动设备可以实现“梦想”，获得“力量”。高管们表示，新款的Surface Pro比前两代产品更加轻薄时尚、运算速度更快。它能够让人们完成文字处理这类商务工作，还将“取代笔记本电脑。”

    Surface Pro 3也许是微软为实现自己多年梦想所做的最后一次尝试，也就是在由苹果（Apple）、亚马逊（Amazon）和三星（Samsung）统治的平板电脑市场上成为强劲的竞争者。

    尽管微软长期供应“平板电脑”，但怎样让这种设备变得时尚一直是这家公司的老大难问题。甚至在2010年苹果推出iPad之前，许多专家就预计平板电脑最终会取代笔记本电脑，正如笔记本电脑在很大程度上取代了台式机一样。对微软而言，这是一件麻烦事：多年来，办公软件Office和操作系统Windows都是这家公司最赚钱的两大产品。尽管台式机使用的Windows仍然统治着笔记本电脑市场，但苹果的iOS系统却在平板电脑市场遥遥领先。说微软是被远远抛在后面的老三都已经是有所保留了。（谷歌安卓和苹果iOS分列前二，这两大操作系统在平板电脑市场的占有率达到了97.9%。）

    微软想要让自己的软件出现在平板电脑上，最好的办法之一就是研发自己的产品。因此，Surface应运而生。

    迄今为止，Surface还不能算得上成功。截至目前，微软已经在平板电脑业务上亏损了超过12亿美元，分析家们把它称作“资金无底洞”。根据信息技术行业服务提供商IDC的数据，尽管Surface在2013年第四季度的销量同比翻番，在市场上的占有率却仍然不到10%。

    如今，在对梦想和力量的侃侃而谈之中，微软表现出他们至少听取了人们过去对于Surface的批评。

    轻薄的外接键盘让人很难把Surface放在膝盖上使用？那好，微软现在增加了一个额外的磁性扣，让它能放得更稳。

    “Kickstand”支架的竖直角度让Surface用起来很不方便？现在人们可以灵活调整支架的角度了。（人们对这项功能赞不绝口。）

    键盘的触控板效果很差？微软降低了它的摩擦。

    10.6英寸的屏幕太小了，真正干活时很不方便？微软把新一代Surface屏幕增大到了12英寸，却没有增加设备重量，反而还把产品的厚度从10.6毫米减少到9.1毫米，却无损它强度。为了证明这点，演示者还把Surface摔在了铺着毯子的地面上。

    还有许许多多其他功能。潘乃用了足足一个小时向听众们展示产品的特性，包括Surface的多用触控笔、自动云同步，以及并行计算能力。

    有了Surface Pro 3，微软表示他们不再害怕平板电脑淘汰笔记本电脑了。（市场的刺激显然起到了作用。）实际上，微软自己就想打响淘汰战的第一枪，在发布会的最后，潘乃自豪地宣布：Surface Pro 3将会是取代笔记本电脑的平板电脑。（这款产品将于明天上市，售价799美元。）

    当然，他的预测还有缺憾。笔记本电脑还不需要被取代，至少目前如此。如今，笔记本电脑仍属于“必需品”，而平板电脑还是“有更好，没有也行”的产品。分析家甚至预测平板电脑销量将会达到峰值——但实际上，在上一季度，iPad的销量还出现了下滑。

    不过，潘乃显然希望Surface Pro 3能够改变这一点。但他在抛出这个理论时，一不小心提出了对自己“平板电脑统治论”的最好质疑：关于96%的iPad用户也拥有笔记本电脑这一事实，他表示：“人们都让你去买平板电脑，但你自己知道，你依然需要笔记本电脑。”微软在向笔记本电脑宣战，但与此同时，它面对的也许是一个根本就不存在的敌人。（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    To hear Microsoft's top brass tell it, their 101,914-person, $327 billion company is made up of fanciful dreamers with a mission to empower the masses.

    At a press event today to introduce the Surface Pro 3 tablet, chief executive SatyaNadella and Surface Computing head Panos Panay repeatedly spoke of the "dreams" and "empowerment" that can be achieved with the company's new mobile device. The new Surface Pro is sleeker, faster, thinner, and lighter than its previous version, the executives said. It will allow people to perform business tasks such as word processing. And it "will replace the laptop."

    If nothing else, the Surface Pro 3 may be Microsoft's latest attempt in fulfilling its own long-held dream: to be a major player in a tablet market dominated by Apple, Amazon, and Samsung.

    Though the company has long offered "tablet computers," the device's modern incarnation has been a problem for Microsoft (MSFT). Even before Apple (AAPL) introduced the iPad in 2010, pundits predicted that tablets would eventually replace the laptop, just as the laptop had largely replaced the desktop computer. For Microsoft, that spelled trouble: Office and Windows have long been two of the company's most lucrative products. While PCs running Windows still dominate the laptop market, Apple's iOS leads the tablet market. To say that Microsoft is a distant third is an understatement.

    One of the best ways for Microsoft to get its software on tablets would be to make its own. Thus, Surface.

    To date, Surface hasn't been a success. Microsoft has lost more than $1.2 billion on its tablet business so far, prompting analysts to call it a "money pit." Even with sales doubling year-over-year in the fourth quarter, Surface tablets make up less than 10% of the market, according to industry tracker IDC.

    Today, amid the fluffy talk of dreams and empowerment, Microsoft showed it has at least listened to past criticisms of the Surface.

    The flimsy attachable keyboard made it hard to work on your lap? Microsoft added an extra magnetic attachment to make it more secure.

    The upright "kickstand" angle made the tablet hard to draw on? Microsoft made it fully flexible. (The crowd applauded at this feature.)

    The keyboard's trackpadperformed badly? Microsoft reduced the friction on it.

    The small 10.6-inch screen made it too small to get real work done? Microsoft expanded the Surface screen to 12 inches, without adding any weight. Microsoft also reduced the device's thickness from 10.6 millimeters to 9.1 millimeters without making it weaker, and demonstrated the feat by dropping a device on a carpeted floor.

    And so on. Panay walked the crowd through an hour's worth of feature demonstrations, showing off the Surface's versatile click-pen, automatic cloud synching, andside-by-side computing abilities.

    With the Surface Pro 3, Microsoft is saying that it is no longer scared of tablets killing laptops. (The market incentives are certainly helping.) In fact, it wants to fire the first shot, and Panay closed the event by proudly declaring that the Surface Pro 3 will be the tablet that will replace the laptop. (It goes on sale tomorrow with a $799 price tag.)

    His premise is flawed, of course. The laptop doesn't need replacing, at least not yet. Today, the laptop remains a "need-to-have" product; the tablet is a "nice-to-have" product. Analysts are even predicting a peak in tablet sales -- last quarter, unit sales of iPads actually declined.

    But Panay clearly wants the Surface Pro 3 to change that. In saying so, he inadvertently made the best argument against the dominance of tablets himself: 96% of iPad owners also own a laptop, he noted. "You've been told to buy a tablet, but you know you need a laptop," he said. By declaring war on the laptop, Microsoft is fighting an enemy that might not be there.