The Microsoft Surface Event; and My Take

So last week was the Microsoft Surface launch event. It was a showcase of the coolest of the cool stuff that Microsoft would be coming out with, well, at least, that’s what I hear. A few weeks ago I posted about the Apple Keynote that happened this year. I posted about it last year too. The reason I was able to do both of these posts is that they live streamed the event and made damned sure that everyone knew what was going on. Microsoft, in stark contrast, not only didn’t live stream the event, but they also haven’t (as of this posting) put anything up on u-tube or on their website which would be a recording of the thing that could be seen. There was a select group that was allowed in to see it, but the rest of us mear mortals were virtually shut out.

I genuinely don’t understand why they would do this. Microsoft has, over the past couple of years, seriously upped its coolness factor with the surface and all the things that the surface has brought around. From what I have heard some seriously cool things came out of last weeks event. The main one that I have heard about from the blogs and web magazines that were able to wrangle an invitation was the Surface Headphones that will be coming out. They are an over the ear, wireless headphone which will connect to your surface while you are working. Their “party piece” however is genuinely cool. Their headphones will have adjustable noise canceling abilities. Noise canceling headphones are always cool, indeed if you’re on planes often or you work in a place with a lot of noise. The beauty of the adjustable noise-canceling headphones (certainly from my perspective) is that (if they work the way that I think that they do) you’ll have the ability to keep out the noises that you don’t want to hear. A great example of this is like a couple of people talking loudly in the coffee shop next to you, and you will still be able to listen to the noises you do want to hear (like oncoming traffic).

This is a perfect example of the cool kind of thing that would do so well in a public presentation of all the cool tech that was coming out in the next few months. There are some things that you absolutely should scream from the rooftops about how totally badass awesome it is, and there was more than one thing that they could have done so from what I’ve been able to gather together about what they talked about. If they wanted to have a good review then having an impressive presentation which goes out to the whole world is one of the easiest and best ways to do it. Even if not everyone sees the thing, you better believe that the people who do see it (like e-journalists and bloggers like me) will be talking about it.

In today’s day and age when you are marketing to a broad audience, you need to, well, market to them. Microsoft is THE name in business software, with their Office 365 system (which I’m a big fan of) and in particular their SharePoint system with which I am very familiar. Now they are quietly trying to assert some dominance in the Hardware market. They aren’t trying to break in, and there are way too many people who have surfaces for that to be the case. What is happening now is that they are trying to prove their dominance in the hardware market. That seems clear, the bit I don’t get is why try to make it hard for people to see that? People are quick to pick up on the latest and greatest technology. This includes what gets released the latest. Apple has done a great job of making a staple event that people have started following religiously. This is something that Microsoft could easily do; they need to be able to live stream these events and put them on Utube.

The Microsoft surface event was last week. I’m looking forward to seeing if I can watch the Google event with the reveal of their latest tech. Luckily it is going to be live-streamed during the event. It will also be available on You-Tube. Don’t worry; I’ll be reporting back on it on Thursday.

Do you think they should live to stream their events? 

Let me know in the comments section below. If you like this blog post and want to see more, you can follow me on Social Media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @jasonlovefiles) or Subscribe to my blog to get new content delivered directly to your mailbox.