Momentum … Or Just Inertia? (Premium)

30 minutes into Microsoft’s New Era of Work digital event this past week, Brad texted me in disbelief at the wooden, tired nature of the presentation. I’m paraphrasing there, what he wrote was, “I have seen a dead squirrel on the side of the road have more soul than this event.”

But you get the idea. How is it possible that Microsoft, which has been releasing new AI products and services at a pace unprecedented in its entire history, could stumble this badly in delivering “the latest Copilot news across Windows and Surface,” as Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s newly appointed CVP of “AI at Work” put it at the start of the event?

It’s a good question, though I’m not sure the presentation style of this event differed all that much from recent Microsoft events. But the better question, to my mind, is why Microsoft didn’t have more to say. Indeed, in private conversations with others who follow Microsoft like I do, the big takeaway here was confusion, as most of the event was just a reiteration of information we already knew, with little in the way of actual news.

Indeed, our news coverage of this event reflected that reality: Laurent wrote up the new Surface for business PCs, the Intel Core Ultra-based Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10, but didn’t mention the rest of the event. That’s because the new devices were literally the only news. But even the Surface announcements were tainted.

To be clear, there’s a lot to like about the new Surface PCs. And they arrived with a subtle acknowledgement by Microsoft that previous Surface PCs didn’t always live up to customer expectations, a complaint I championed for years. These devices address feedback from businesses by including NFC readers, more ports (in the 15-inch Surface Laptop only), an optional smart card reader (also only in Laptop 15), improved repairability and upgradeability, and improved cameras for hybrid work scenarios.

I was originally noodling around with an article idea I thought of as Last Stand for Surface?, but that’s not fair: While the original rationale of this product line is indefensible and led to a permanent rift with its PC maker partners, Microsoft is simply trying to make sense of this business. Part of that involved cutting back on the number of superfluous PC models and accessories it previously sold, some of which I felt harmed the premium promise of the brand. And what that leaves, frankly, are the two products that Microsoft just updated, the only two essential Surface PCs to my mind, Pro and Laptop.

Businesses are just one half of the customer base, of course, but they’re also the more important half, and by revenue, it’s likely closer to two-thirds of the mix. That’s certainly true of Windows more broadly, and if it’s not true of Surface, it must be the goal internally. Business PC sales are far more lucrative than consumer PC sales, for all kinds of reasons, but key among them is the associated monthly per-...