The Channel Wire

April 03, 2008

Many questions remained unanswered about Microsoft Surface, the coffee table-size touchscreen computer that Microsoft announced last May and has showed off to swarms of fascinated onlookers at a number of conferences and special events.

These questions include: What type of applications will be available for Surface, and when will third parties be able to start building them? Will the channel play a role in evangelizing the capabilities of this ground breaking piece of hardware?

And, looking ahead, will the first collection of updates for Microsoft Surface be called Surface Pack 1?

Some of the fog around Surface began to lift this week at CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, where AT&T announced it'll be showing it off the 30-inch table-like display in a handful of stores in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco starting on April 17.

According to AT&T, customers will have a chance to test out Surface's mobile device synchronization technology, which pulls up a graphical view of a mobile device's capabilities simply by placing a device on the display. Interactive maps are another highly touted feature that takes advantage of the multi-touch functions of the Surface.

Microsoft is focusing initially on the leisure entertainment and retail market, and at this point, the channel implications of Surface are unclear. Solution providers will have to wait a year or more until Microsoft releases Surface to all of its partners, and when it does become commercially available, Surface is expected to carry a price tag in the $5,000-$10,000 range, which will likely present barriers to the SMB market.

Microsoft has already announced partnerships with AT&T wireless rival T-Mobile USA , Bellevue, Wash.; Harrah's Entertainment, Las Vegas; Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, White Plains, N.Y. and IGT, Reno, Nevada. These firms have exclusive rights to build applications for the Surface.