David Pogue in his Surface review hits hard on Microsoft with these two statements:

>So that’s the amazing, amazing hardware. Now the heartbreak: software.
And:
>And how ironic that what lets the Surface down is supposedly Microsoft’s specialty: software.

Is that Microsoft’s specialty? Has Windows, Office, or IE really ever been amazing software? I’d argue that Microsoft’s specialty is market dominance, business savvy, relentlessness. In other words, the same things that Samsung is good at.

That’s not to be mean to Microsoft, it’s the truth. Microsoft has been impressively good at creating a dominating business, but they’ve never actually made great software in my opinion. I think that’s why the hardware is so good on the Surface — they haven’t done PC hardware before (outside of Xbox, Zune, etc) so they essentially hired fresh meat to do this — and voila, good hardware.