Students need to consume information and create content. The current tablet offerings from Apple and Android vendors offer great consumption functionality, but cumbersome applications for content creation. Microsoft threatens to fill this gap with a tablet that can run Microsoft Office applications. Word and Excel are the tools most often used by students to create academic content. The alternatives to Word and Excel have not been readily accepted by students or academia as a whole. To bridge the gap between tablets and laptops, genuine Office applications could be the necessary component. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that if students could run Microsoft applications, tablets could then serve as an equivalent device to laptops. The Surface tablet will almost certainly offer the missing ingredient to tablet functionality.
The ease of input is also a major obstacle with many tablets. Creating content requires keyboard input that is efficient. The Surface will have a built in cover that is also a keyboard. If the keyboard has a good ergonomic design and the input is efficient, the Surface could quickly become the preferred tablet for students.
Microsoft is still rather tight lipped about the tablet, but with a release date of October 26, 2012, the facts are soon to emerge. Students considering a tablet purchase would be well advised to wait until the release to see if the Microsoft Surface is a better alternative to existing tablets.
Any computer device is a tool. If Microsoft can offer a tablet that offers students the potential for enhanced productivity, it will likely be a game changer. It is only a matter of time before tablets can offer the input efficiency of laptops, and support Microsoft applications. A good bet might be that this is the moment we cross into a new divide. Fingers crossed, students will react positively to this evolutionary step forward.