I just do not get Microsoft. The place is full of smart people so how come the company acts so dumb.<p>The ipad love it or loathe it works because it's not trying to be all things to all people. It has limitations, sure, but within those it does some things very well indeed (and in fact I would be utterly lost without mine - or rather I would be unhappy to take the step back into the past that not having it would represent).<p>Microsoft seem to be interested in the world of work (although judging by my recent (enforced) use of Word, making more work seems to be their goal with that product) so why not take the same approach - a new device , a new niche and come up with something? it might just be a slicker netbook with a trimmed down OS or it might be something else. A physical interface for the Office suite perhaps - Spreadsheets are not great on the ipad, for example, so there <i>must</i> be a way of making them nice to physically interact with that is not the tablet/slate kind of way. (or actually why not do cheap research by porting things like office to the ipad and seeing if you can make them really work in that form factor or if something else is needed?)<p>They say that people want something like this - work oriented - and then they give them an "everything but the kitchen sink" style monstrosity that is not one thing or the other.<p>This works for Google because android has other selling points but Microsoft can't just throw everything at it and hope something sticks. They need to pick something and think about it.