Indeed, historically Microsoft already beat Apple to the tablet space by a whole ten years.
Problem? It was way before its time and technology limits made the device not terribly ideal for handheld use, along with (ironically) a poor ecosystem of touch-friendly Win32 software. It failed commercially, but what iPad did ten years later was invigorate the industry slice and warmed consumers up to the concept using a much lighter use case model. Surface is just taking this industry evolution a step further--in the sense that Apple stopped innovating--and is trying to close the gap between the current consumption limitations and the original unrequited dream of a productive tablet, as attempted a decade earlier. Honestly, I think MS succeeded, as the third party apps aren't their fault. The upcoming Gemini will just blow everything else out of the water. IMO.
Back then, those original MS tablets/hybrids were made by OEMs, and I have no idea as to build quality, innovation sources, and whatnot. I think the Surface will do better despite a rocky start because Microsoft is trying to exercise more control over most aspects except the third party apps; the Surface RT line doesn't suffer as much for the ideal use case despite apps due to the browser and Office, and the Surface Pro line doesn't suffer as much either since it supports regular Win software and easily connects to outputs to mitigate the non-scaling/non-touch software issues. MS just has a bit further to go for firmware and hardware consistency, but the former fixes are nicely active, so no one should worry about that. I don't know about hardware consistency, as the manufacturing backend is a mystery to me--factory contracts? Shared facilities? Something?
Edit to add (meh, it messed up)
I actually think it is immoral for an employee to not care about what the company spends on. Instead of 200 useless ipads, they could have hired someone. If we try to exploit our company, we could drive it into the ground and then there is no more work.
Sometimes I work for up to 13-14 hours a day. Yes, they pay me overtime bonuses for it. Some people think I exploit the system by purposely staying late. But the fact of the matter is I have to stay late like that some times. I'm just glad my supervisor knows my work takes a lot of time to do, considering they just fired a guy here and dumped his projects on me.
Well, my company is kind of stupidly rich at the moment. And with an Apple employee on the board of directors, what else can you do? Believe me, my group actually TRIED to get cheaper Android corporate phones; the corp plans were also much cheaper for the Android models. But no, they are banned. All the iPhone options are significantly more expensive.
When the leaders are handing down the corporate law in this way, there is nothing immoral on the employees' parts to take advantage of it, IMO. Once the leaders realize they could be saving more money--usually once the stock keeps falling, and there's no sign of that--then maybe there will be a change.
