Well Lenovo acquired Motorola off of Google, so Lenovo is technically not just in the PC manufacturing game anymore.

Lenovo had a thriving cell phone business already - but it served mainly Asia. Motorola gives them instant access to the NA market...

Taking what some CEO said as prognostication and not marketing talk is asinine. We were never headed for a "post-PC era". Tablet sales are slowing. Handhelds are were it's at. Regardless, desktops/laptops have and will (for the foreseeable future) have a very important place in consumer and especially business markets.

Well, less powerful toylike computing devices eventually grow up. I don't know what the transition looks like. Perhaps it will be via phablets. Or it might be a popular iPad accessory or a new kind of dock that got funded through kickstarter. Maybe it is a wireless display and a Bluetooth keyboard combo. Maybe it is a personal shrunk down smart tv that is easily paired with a phone.

The point is eventually they are sufficiently powerful and there is sufficient cloud computing infrastructure around for these device to offload work to. My parents know of no email clients. They have only encountered web mail, and in terms of convenience, it is absolutely great.

What stakes do Microsoft and Apple own in PC manufacturing?

Well for Apple it would probably be their own PC business. maybe they sold that when I wasn't paying attention.

I thought he was implying they had a stake in another non-Mac business. Mentioning Apple otherwise seems odd, seeing as they predate all the other players in the PC space.

Microsoft put up $2 billion on a note for the Dell privatization deal.

Not ownership of course, but a serious bit of dough at stake non-the-less.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/feb13/02-05de...

Microsoft... like the Surface. Ring any bell?

Tbh I've never seen a Surface or bothered to look them up. I had assumed these were just branded tablets manufactured by third parties. Looking now, I still don't see why MS are bothering with them exactly, but the consensus seems to be it's only a way to try and bootstrap the Windows tablet market.

i5 + 4G RAM + 64G SSD = Excel, ssh, ftp, sublimetext, IDEs, full blown email program, virtual machines. Docking station for easy keyboard and mouse support + multiple monitors.

Use the pen to annotate pdfs, draw flowcharts, make designs, take notes.

Read flipboard, kindle on your lap.

It is a very good proposition for technical savvy business people. It's not as good as a corresponding laptop(better internals, better keyboard, better monitor) or a corresponding tablet (better design, dimentions, weight, app selection). But it is very well built, has decent battery life, truly portable, slick looking and powerful. If you are not concerned with your friends' opinion on it and you NEED the functionality and convenience of only 1 device, the surface pro 2 is a very good choice. And I imagine it will only get better. I don't use the cover tho. Very expensive without providing much convenience. If you need a keyboard for a quick email or smth like that, the onscreen will do its job like in another tablets and if you are committed to work, it will not suffice.