[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Microsoft just doesn't get it. A tablet is nothing like a PC and consumers don't want it to be anything like a PC. That's why Tablet PC failed and that's why Surface Pro will fail. It will be too expensive, too heavy and too thick. The fact that it can run x86 applications means what, exactly? Is anybody going to drop $700 for Photoshop so they can run it on a 10" screen on a crippled ULV processor? That keyboard is nice in theory, but pointless, since you can't use that kickstand properly on your lap, so you need furniture to use the physical keyboard. That's some portability.Surface RT will fail because it has nothing on Android tablets or the iPad. It will only have 1366x768, Tegra 3 (which will be almost a year old when RT is released), it will have relatively few apps to begin with, but it will be as expensive as the iPad and top-of-the-line Android tablets. It's a brand new software ecosystem, and a user interface that failed to materialize phone sales in Windows Phone 7 (and probably won't in WP8 either).[/citation]
remember that MS's largest consumers are businesses, and there are a lot of businesses who have been waiting for a Win8 tablet just for the security/domain features. The Surface will be a huge sell to this crowd because you have full office on both platforms, and the x86 will allow you to use real programs like quickbooks, database/invintory software, and several other enterprise style input programs. You are right that nobody is going to be running Photoshop on these, but you are so short sighted to think that a company facing the decision of spending millions of $$ in developing iOS and Android apps, compared to dropping $700 per device, and be able to reuse the existing software.
All the same I think Millions is a bit optomistic for the 1st year, because there is going to be a lot of skepticism for people moving to win8. But I think once people realize that Metro is here to stay then they will see the numbers start climbing very quickly in year 2.
Either way, if I was in the market for a tablet and had the choice between Android, iOS, and Win8 x86 I would choose Win8 every time. Put the choice of Win8RT in there... well then Android may stand a chance, but the inclusion of office may win me over to RT if it came to such a decision.