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PC makers may not be satisfied with Windows 8 hardware sales, but at least they needn't worry about Microsoft's Surface tablets swallowing the industry whole. According to AdDuplex, Microsoft's Surface RT only accounts for 6.8 percent of Windows 8/RT devices, at least among those that accessed the firm's cross-promotion ad network. That's still good for the top slot, however, with the HP Pavilion G6 proving to be the second most-popular device with a 4.2 percent share. The Intel Core i5-packing Surface Pro was barely a blip, ranking as the 52nd-most common Windows 8 device. Keep in mind that AdDuplex's stats...

A few weeks ago, I urged Microsoft to shake up the tablet market by selling Surface at a radically low price: $150 or less. Crazy? Perhaps. But I wasn’t alone. Vivek Wadhwa made a similar argument here.So it was disappointing today to see the company announce the starting price of $499. Sure, it puts it in range with Apple’s iPad. But it feels timid. It feels like a price that says: What’s the lowest we can go to match Apple? Microsoft seems to be betting that it will win on features when consumers compare the iPad to the Surface...

With its new Surface Tablet, Microsoft didn’t just break the mold. It smashed it into a million little pieces, chucked them all into the furnace and set the temperature to obliterate. There really is no precedent for what Microsoft did this week. What was once recognizable is gone. The expected is no more. There are no rules, only supply and the possibility of demand. Microsoft finally built the tablet it wants to use for its platform: an ultra-thin, superlight, kick-stand-sporting, brainiac-cover wearing, touch screen wonder that elicited dozens of “I wants” in Mashable’s live blog chatter. Surface is still wrapped...

Microsoft Store in Century City, Calif. Finding a local Microsoft Store will be a challenge for hands-on consumers looking to try out the Surface tablet. (Credit: Brooke Crothers)After all of the hoopla this week, you would think the Surface tablet was the end of the PC industry as we know it. Not so fast, say analysts. What we know so far is that Surface will be sold through Microsoft Stores only in the U.S. -- the online store and brick-and-mortar outlets. Ever been to a Microsoft Store? Didn't think so. There just aren't that many. I count about 20. Compare...

... The market may not need a Windows tablet, but Microsoft desperately does. The company has been steadily -- some might say, inexorably -- falling behind in the new era of computing, the era in which the ability to easily access information is more important than the operating system or computing device we use to do it. Microsoft still hasn't understood this, failing to become a significant force in smartphones or tablets, mainly because it's working from an outdated model of being the Great Copier. Microsoft has always mimicked other technologies, from graphical interfaces to Web browsing to financial software....

Watch out, Apple. Microsoft’s mystery announcement is out of the bag and it’s giving the iPad a run for its money. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled Microsoft Surface, a new tablet that heads a “whole new family of Microsoft computing devices,” Ballmer announced at the mystery event at the Milk Studios in Hollywood, Calif., Monday afternoon. From what we’ve seen and heard, the Surface tablet is perhaps the first serious competitor to Apple’s iPad tablet. What’s more, it’s got the capability of a PC – as good for creating content as it is for consuming, according to Ballmer’s highly anticipated...