The base model w/o a digitizer pen (needed to compensate for using Win 7 with a touch interface unless one has needle like fingers) is $999. If you want one with Mobile connectivity (WWAN), it's $1,225... and still no digitizer pen!! You want everything, they've got one for $1,349.
How on earth does this compete with the iPad2 where the fully loaded model is $700 and the WiFi base model is $500?
Definitely not for the consumer. They’re probably betting that the ease of integrating and supporting it in a Windows networking environment will be worth it for enterprise users.
Because it's a different market and they are not going to buy them one at a time so there will be a quantity discount.
What I'm thinking is: "Runs the customized business application I use daily without modification"
The iPad is a terrific personal entertainment device, but it's useless to anyone who had thousands of dollars (and in my case, thousands of hours of development time) investigated in industry-specific Windows based applications.
Different markets, and in mine cost is MUCH less important than "ruggedized" hardware and application portability.