Lloyd- the analysts on wall street are looking for Microsoft to make it's comeback with the Surface Pro and consider the RT a yawner. The problem here is the timing and we won't see a real gain for at least a year. That is my evaluation for stock gain. But, I agree that the RT will not be an ipad killer, no more than the tablets from other Apple competitors are. Most of the public is not interested in the pro and like you said it will be the device for the techie/geek. But I would add to that, for business and technical users. This is where I believe, Microsoft has it's future. If it fails, well, I bought pretty low and the dividend is better than a bank so I'm not worried. Msft recently increased its dividend.
I think the presentation from any company is either what exists now or some future release. The latter is always questionable but I evaluate based on what I see the goal is. And, the goal, I believe, is realistic. If they fail, it will likely be because the RT fails and marketing will pull the whole Surface project. Time will tell.
As far as MacBook power, I may have a different view on what powerful means. I'm not talking about limiting to some MIPS data but rather how versatile the devices are in what you can do in tasks. I learned a real hard and rude awakening about Final Cut power for editing a few years ago. After 3 instructors and Apple classes, they finally admitted the Macbook can't do many things I needed to do. Their answer was I need to change what my clients demand and force them to think inside the Apple crate. If the MacBook or iMac does all you need it is probably a better choice. But for my work, Apple world is not aware of the planet Earth and I work on the planet Earth. The best I found is to run windows on the Macbook to recover some of my investment. Thanks to Parallels.
