Will Microsoft Surfaces change everything?

Okay so the video looks cool, the feedback on the device looks good.  As best I can tell it looks like an iPad running Windows 8.  I have been testing Windows 8 for a few weeks now and it is a smooth, clean OS which solidly puts Windows in the table touch space.

Surface is an important step for Microsoft.  The development of the slate market has been obvious since I posted this diagram over 2 years ago.  The tablet (called slate in the diagram) is a natural technology for the cloud.  The tablet clearly fits between the space of Mobile Phone and Lap Top.

To date the tablet has been dominated by Android and iOS.  So tablets remain kind of big phones.  But even hard core tablet users like myself have to sit down all the time to get key work done.  It would seem that current iPads and Android Tablets are limited by restrictions of mobile phones.

So far Microsoft has not been able to get in to this space.  Its domination of the PC market has not extended to tablets.  But it is also fair to say that Android and Apple tablets don't pose to serious a threat to PCs, yet. I can't really imagine giving up my PCs to use an iPad alone.  Can you?

Surfaces looks to be the first tablet which might replace a laptop.  So far my testing of Windows 8 has convinced me that it is finally the real thing.

My prediction in 2010 was that Apple would be the first owner of this space, and that Google would be limited by lack of hardware expertise.  So I predicted that as of 2011 the tablet space (which I called the slate at the time) would be owned by Apple, but by 2015 Microsoft Windows 9 tablet would take over.

Lets see.