There's a good reason for that. These are going to run Windows 8, they have to, but Windows 8 isn't coming out for months yet. If they announced these the day of Windows 8's release they'd lose out on a lot of business because people would have already made other purchasing decisions in the interim. Windows 8 ready ultrabooks, ipads, etc. Now they're giving people enough time to change their minds before they've pulled the trigger and spent their money.

Also, by announcing this now, they can get people excited, and especially the developer community thinking about Metro apps.

This is why I'm very skeptical about this.

They probably won't ship until the end of this year.

HP & Microsoft announced the Windows Slate tablet back in 2010 & it never made it to market.

http://gizmodo.com/5442200/hps-windows-7-slate-device-reveal...

Huh? I've used an HP slate, I have a friend who owns one, you can buy one right here:

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Slate-500-8-9-Black/dp/B00465QM6Q

They are pretty terrible, and a dead end in terms of Windows 8 support based on my experience.

Sure, but they exist. Using them as an argument that the Surface is merely vaporware is a non-starter.

If they don't ship before the holiday season, they'll be setting themselves up for failure. Apple will be releasing a new iPad in February, so the consumer market will be toast for them. Tablet growth continues to explode, and by the end of 2013, it's conceivable that tablet sales will outpace traditional PCs:

http://www.asymco.com/2012/03/02/when-will-the-tablet-market...

In a BYOD world, can enterprise sales provide enough traction for Microsoft to overcome their lack of appeal in the consumer market?

EDIT-

It appears the low end model will be out in October in time for the holiday season, and the Pro version 90 days later.

I hope I'm wrong, but not mentioning a price says to me that they know they won't be able to match the entry-level iPad $500 price point.

I'm not sure they can. They don't have the supply chain advantages that Apple has developed over the last five years, they won't have the volume to drive component prices down, and unless this is really a reference design that OEMs will be producing and distributing, they'll irritate the beejeezus out of their partners.

I don't blame them for trying to vertically integrate, especially after seeing what it has done for Apple. But I think they're too late to the party.

I came to the same thought about the supply chain at first, but Microsoft does sell hardware, the XBox (and I guess the Zune.) Certainly not the same as Apple, but they do have handle on it.

Given how a lot of OEMs are pumping Androids, Microsoft may just have to start hedging its bets.

(On a lighter note maybe we can start a red-ring of death meme).

Microsoft does ship a huge number of XBox, I think around 60+ million last year, but it's not really a cutting edge device since the console market is relatively sluggish when it comes to change. The Kinect is much more interesting from a technical standpoint.

I think based on the dreck that the OEMs have been delivering for the last 8-10 years, it's not surprising that Microsoft felt it had to jump into the hardware business directly.

Xbox 360 - 67.2 million sold since November 2005.

Ah thanks, I misread the CES announcement as 2011 sales, not cumulative sales. 9 million a year isn't much compared to Apple selling 315 million iOS devices since it all started. Not to mention all the notebooks, iPods and desktops shipped.

Plus, they don't even have a "retina" display for that RT tablet. And yes, best case scenario it will be $500, if they remove some other hardware features as well (cameras, etc). It will most likely be at least $600 for the entry model, again without retina display, or anything close to that.

I'd be very surprised if Microsoft sold these under their own brand. Perhaps they're more like the Intel proof of concepts and "the real thing" will be announced by Nokia?

I was surprised. Did they forget to mention about price and availability?

Poor PR from MSFT.

From what I can recall, that's how many tech product launches go. Sometimes you get "3rd quarter" estimates, but I don't recall too many vendors outside of Apple giving exact shipping dates.

And this is why people will forget about this unless MS spends a bushel trying to keep it in view. This announcement just seems so clumsy. Microsoft just finished with TechEd last week, and could have announced it then. But they want to vaporware for a bit longer.

Seriously, no release date, no pricing, no real demo (rendered images instead), no software announcements other than Netflix and Office. This type of product announcement might have worked pre-Internet, but nowadays people expect to be able to find out concrete details and pricing once a product is announced.

No demo units shipped to Walt Mossberg or David Pogue, or even a John Dvorak...

This isn't like the Zune however. The Zune was peripheral to Microsoft's core business. This is central to where a large portion of the computing market is headed. If this takes two or three revisions to gain traction, then Microsoft might be too late.

I understand that. All the cool tech/UI aside, most of the people want to know price and availability. When iPhone was first released, it launched with $299. Price alone created so much buzz like "all this awesome things at just $299, I'm getting one". Now I'm definitely interested in this product but if they price it $1000 I may or may not buy. Why not declare price right away? I'm sure they have nailed down the price. So whats the point in holding onto that.

That's factually untrue. The iPhone launched at $499/$599 for 4gb/8gb models, and then a few months later had the 4gb discontinued and the 8gb dropped to $399, arguably due in no small part to people complaining how expensive it was.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#U.S._rele...]