Exactly. By announcing it now, and 3 month later (or however long it takes) doesn't make much difference for MS. My suggestion was that by announcing it now and not selling the actual hardware until a few month down the road, they wasted all the hype and rush that they can capitalize on (all the impulse shoppers) and what is to prevent other companies to announce some other stuff? If a shopper who was originally thinking of buying an iPad now sits on the fence for Surface, chances are, if other company announce something else, they will sit on the fence again.

And MS is in for a long term business. Temporally shocks (positively or negatively alike) are not major concern for their decision. It's not like MS depends on those little shocks.

Exactly. There's no point in me going to my office/den to check e-mail, read news or follow sports when I can just pick up my iPad while I'm relaxing in the living room or before going to bed. In the morning I check my work e-mails and company bulletins while having breakfast to get a head start on my day.

The tasks I do haven't changed - they've just been split up between my PC's and my iPad.