The "snowmageddon", as people seem to want to call it, may have put a damper on Microsoft's big Surface Pro launch event in New York City, but will not stop the new Windows 8 Pro tablet from going on sale tonight at Midnight. It also will not affect the company's expansion into even more markets with its previously released RT version of the Surface.
Today Microsoft announced that its Surface RT would be launched in a number of new locations, making the device more global than it has been since sales began on October 26th.
Panos Panay, corporate vice president: "We are thrilled to expand the Surface family with the release of Surface Pro". He elaborates that "customers will be able to choose a combination of devices that best suit their needs: Surface Pro, which provides the power and performance of a laptop in a tablet package, or Surface RT".
The Surface RT devices will now be available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
The announcement also elaborated a bit on accessories -- a new Wedge Touch Mouse Surface Edition and three new Touch Cover Limited Editions in red, magenta and cyan. These devices will retail for $69.99 and $129.99 respectively. While the Surface is a tablet, it also doubles as a laptop, meaning those keyboards are an accessory that everyone will likely want to grab. Which, in turn, means the price is a bit more than what meets the eye.
While even a company with the size and bank account of Microsoft could not stop Mother Nature, it still manages to get its announcement and products out to the masses. Now, it just hopes the masses will take the bait. That part will not be known for sometime, though. So, what do all of you think? Will the Surface Pro be a success? Do other markets want the RT version? Only time will tell.
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The Surface pro won't succeed more than the failed RT (only ~ 720,000 shipped). The pro is still a 10" $1000 netbook with mixed desktop and Fisher Price tiles that ~30% of Windows 8 users just hate to watch, forcing them to install "skip the Metro" apps.