SATYA NADELLA: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our event in New York. I’ve had a chance to see many of you over the last couple of busy months, and you’ve been on our journey with a couple of events. And so it’s great to see many of you made it to the East Coast. It’s good to be on a different coast this time.
I wanted to talk about our devices today. But I want to start by talking about the journey that we’ve been on. You heard me talk about our mobile-first, cloud-first strategy. And this is our focus for every device and every service that we launch at Microsoft.
And over the last couple of months, you’ve seen us talk about various aspects of this strategy. We started off by talking about how our cloud enabled everyone on every device. This is what we did when we launched Office 365 and Office Apps on the iPad.
We also talked at that event about our enterprise mobility suite, which enables enterprise IT to enable access to corporate information on any device.
We also had a major event around our data platform. This was the event at which we talked about creating this new platform for ambient intelligent experiences, as well as how one goes about creating a data culture within an organization using these data platforms.
And then lastly, at Build, which is our developer conference, we talked about the advances in Windows and our Azure platform on the cloud. We talked about how, in particular with Windows, we were advancing on every dimension from form factors to business models to experiences for both people, IT and developers.
Today is the next step on that journey. We want to talk about devices and hardware. But it starts for us with this obsession of empowering every individual and organization to do more and be more. That is what we at Microsoft are all about. This is what is the unifying theme for the company across everything that we do.
We want products and technologies that enable people to dream and get stuff done. We want products and technologies that enable people to be able to get more out of every moment of their life. That’s the mission that we’re on.
The motivation for this comes from really looking at people in real life. When you see a doctor doing a diagnosis and making important, but rapid decisions. When you see an architect do a design for a building. When you see a student create a trip report. A busy professional or a parent organize their life and their time and communicate. All of those activities act as the motivation for what we want to do at Microsoft.
That’s what has led us to build the ubiquitous software products that we’ve built to date. Take Office with over a billion users of Office. That’s the motivation for it.
And of course now we’re extending it with Office 365 and services like Skype, OneNote, OneDrive, to really take that notion of productivity forward in a mobile-first world.
It’s just not us. In fact, we have many, many partners who also equally obsess about creating these software services for productivity. You take Adobe and Autodesk and SAP and Intuit on the other end of business process. All of them are also building software that is all about enabling and empowering people to do stuff.
So that’s what leads us to today’s discussion. The question that needs to be asked and answered is: Why hardware? We clearly are not interested in building refrigerators or toasters. We are not building hardware for hardware’s sake. We want to build experiences that bring together all the capabilities of our company from our cloud infrastructure to our application services to our hardware capabilities to build these mobile-first productivity experiences. That’s the mission.
We’re building new strength and capability around that alchemy of being able to bring hardware and software together. And the Nokia close really gives us that extra strength to be able to do that.
We’re not interested in competing with our OEMs when it comes to hardware. In fact, our goal is to create new categories and spark new demand for our entire ecosystem. That’s what inspires us and motivates us with what we’re doing in our devices and hardware.
And today is a major milestone on that journey. It starts with dreaming the impossible, of can we design and build a device that takes the best of the tablet and the laptop and enables any individual to be able to read, and to be able to create and write. Allows you to watch a movie and make a movie, enjoy art and create art. That’s the device that we want to create. That was the motivation for the Surface line.
And today, we have a major step forward on that dream and that mission. And to really show you what we’ve done over the last year or so on that dream, I want to invite up on stage Panos Panay, he and his team have been really driving this quest forward. Panos? Come on up. (Applause.)
PANOS PANAY: What’s up, dude? Good to see you. Thank you, it’s always awesome to come up here and talk, and the privilege to talk after Satya is something that is almost dream-worthy.
I will tell you, starting every time I stand up here and I stand in front, and then all this flash and so forth, the truth is, it’s a humbling experience every time. And I’m humbled because I get to represent the Surface team specifically and they work so hard around the globe to bring these products to you alongside.
It’s a beautiful thing, but there’s a little bit more to this product. And it’s not just the Surface team that I get to represent today. It’s all of Microsoft. It’s been an amazing journey for Surface for sure, but when you think about all the hard work that you’re going to see that happened in this device, amazing work by Windows and Office and Skype, OneDrive, even Microsoft Studios all coming together. Representing that is one of these feelings that you get as a leader and it gets you pretty excited.
What also gets you excited is when you have somebody who is pushing you to dream the impossible. Just push you. Like, go do it. Do more. Get it done. That kind of jacks you up and you get excited about it, no doubt.
And then you look back at the mission that Surface started, and it was all about that. As a matter of fact, our first catch phrase was: Click in and do more. We had this vision, this dream. We wanted to push forward with this thing called a tablet and this device, but help people be able to get more done on it. I don’t think that was dreaming the impossible just yet, but it was a step forward, and it was a good start.
And then we launched Surface Pro 2 and Surface 2 and some of you started to write nice things. That was really nice, by the way. It super helps when you write nice things.
And the team gets motivated and excited. And Microsoft, in general, just goes, “God, they kind of like this thing, that’s cool.”
And a couple of you made some fun quotes and nice stuff. And, by the way, we’ve read plenty of negative, and we learn and we grow and we take and we feed and we feed and we get better. There is no question.
And while it’s all interesting, it gets so much more important to think about what people are actually doing with the device. We don’t actually design the device for us in this room. We design it for people who use it every day. Super important to understand that.
And when you talk about dreaming the impossible, when you say those words, it’s better to look at the customers who do that, the people who use your device every day. So much more intriguing and inspiring. So we put together a few stories for you just to see a little bit of what Surface has done and some of the impact it’s had to the people around us. Take a look.
(Break for video segment.)
PANOS PANAY: (Applause.) That’s cool, right? I mean, it’s super inspiring when you see stuff like that. For me and for the team, when we get to feel that and people really using your device and people using it to make a change and to make things great, it’s pretty awesome.
But let’s take a step back for just a minute and let’s deal with some reality. Three years ago, three years ago, there were a bunch of people in a room just like that right here, like this, that were writing stories. And a lot of those stories looked like there’s this thing called tablets and they’re coming and they’re going to kill the laptop. It’s going to change everything. That was supposed to happen — for sure.
And a person like me sits back and we start putting road maps together and you start designing products knowing that this wave is coming. And then everybody is going to be in a press conference three years later using their tablets.
Just look around for one minute. It is super fascinating. Seriously, look around. I saw one, there might be two, for sure there’s plenty of MacBook Airs in for good reason. (Laughter.) What happened? What happened? 96 percent of you who have iPads in your bag right now are also carrying laptops. I’d guess it’s 100, we just can only prove to 96. (Laughter.)
That’s a reason for that. Let’s just talk about the reason. It’s not bad, it’s good. But there’s a reason. Just think it through with me.
Tablets, from a product-making standpoint, tablets, they’re designed for you to sit back and watch movies. They’re designed to read books. They’re made for browsing the Web, snacking on apps, those are interesting. Laptops are not designed that way at all. They’re designed to help you get stuff done. They’re designed because you actually need to do things.
They’re designed because when you’re sitting where you are right now, you have to capture the thoughts I’m trying to say. They’re designed for editing, they’re designed for making. That is a point of view that’s true, and sometimes they come out clunky, and sometimes they come out beautiful. But either way, there’s a design point. And they’re made for that reason. That’s happening.
But it gets even a little bit more tricky. We just did this. We did this. We made products. And you learn this thing was called “all-day battery life” and it blew you away. And you’re, like, I could use this thing all day. And then when I push the button, it’s still there. I mean, it does so much.
But then that started to blur, too. But was it the tablet? Was it the laptop? Which one was it that worked all day? And which one do I need to use every day? It’s super interesting.
But then that complex started to push itself into people. People. Isn’t that what matters? Isn’t that what we designed them for? Not for us, but everybody.
And then they’d walk into a store. And it doesn’t matter what store. Let me be super clear about that. It does not matter what store you walk into, the conflict exists. It exists. You walk into a store and you walk up to the sales person. And you can stand between two very clear tables and ask a question: What is it that I’m supposed to buy?
And most do, because not everybody knows everything about anything and everything about everything, and people are learning at all times, which is wonderful. And when they walk in, they say, “What am I supposed to buy?” What does the sales rep say almost every time, almost every time, what do they say? Does anyone know? I’m sure you’ve asked. You report on things like this. The response is so common it’s uncanny. It’s so simple, yet so complex.
The response is this: What is it that you want to do? I don’t know. I’m about to spend $1,000. I thought I needed to do everything. And that’s how you feel. But why? That happened because of the conflict that we’re creating every day. And does that conflict need to exist? You’ve been told to buy a tablet, but you know you need a laptop. And that’s happening. That’s a real conflict.
You walk into the store, that conflict is right in front of you. And sometimes you buy two things. Turns out, 96 percent of the time you buy two things. Maybe not on that day, but you definitely come back when you didn’t have what you needed. And why?
So today we’re going to focus on that and only that. Taking that conflict away. We have to remove it. People need that. But to do it, it’s just not that simple because it would have been done already, wouldn’t it?
To do it, you’d have to have everything in one package. You’d have to not compromise anything when it came to performance. It would still have to be thin and light. This paradigm called battery life, using your products all day, always having it there for you, all that had to still be true. It had to be sexy, sleek, feel good, personal. All this stuff. All of it in one package. It all had to be there.
Maybe it had to be a little bigger. Because, man, these small screens, they look small, and there’s a reason for that. They are.
Today, we take the conflict away and I’m absolutely sure of that. I’d like to introduce you to Surface Pro 3. (Applause.)
(Break for video segment.)
PANOS PANAY: (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, this is the tablet that can replace your laptop. Surface Pro 3. You can just see it over here really quick. Let’s take a quick look at that. Look at how thin it is. Not an illusion, it’s easy to do something like that on stage, done it plenty, but just take a look right here and how thin it is. And I’m just going to walk you through that in just a minute.
So as a point of reference, the best way to kind of look at this device to start is use Surface Pro 2 because you can just kind of see the comparison.
Surface Pro 2 packs a ton of punch. It has all the performance that you needed in your full laptop, and is as performant as anything on market.
We then took that product, we took that exact same performance, increased it, pushed it from the 10.6 millimeters it started at and pushed it down to the 9.1 millimeters you see on stage. Pretty incredible. It is cool. (Applause.)
And we designed in thinness around every corner. And I’m going to talk about that a little bit, and it’s really important that when you do it, you do it that way consciously because to make this the thinnest core product that’s ever been created, you had to take a lot of steps.
But it’s not only the thinnest because you can always make something that’s thin. It’s not actually that complicated, but it is really challenging to keep it as powerful as you possibly can. This product, by definition, is faster than the Surface Pro 2 that you guys have loved so far to date. Yet it still holds all the thinness of any tablet you really need.
But let’s talk about the screen for a minute because that’s pretty important. It’s an absolutely beautiful screen. And when you look at the Surface Pro 2 screen and its 16:9 aspect ratio and you look at the Surface Pro 3 screen, we’ve grown it to a 12-inch diagonal.
Now, I want to explain that to you really quick. Pushing it to 12 inches was critical. If we want to do more, if we want to help people be more, if we want to be more productive, fitting right in between the tablet and the laptop and getting to the point where you can replace your laptop, this is a critical, critical element.
12 inches, it is a beautiful screen. It’s a 3:2 aspect ratio, which we’ll talk about later. It’s something that hasn’t really been done before in this size. It’s a 2160×1440 display. We call it “pixel free.” It is the same clear-type technology that you’ve seen in Surface Pro 2.
It’s optically bonded. It has the highest contrast ratios in the industry. Critical. Productivity, not a sexy word, I totally get it. But to be more productive, to help yourself do more, to get more done, the higher those ratios are, the less eye strain you have.
I know it’s subtle, but it matters. It just means you get less tired. That’s super important.
But just look at the screen. It is gorgeous. I can talk specs all day, and quite frankly, it doesn’t bore me, but it probably bores you. This product is beautiful.
I want to come off of this really quick because the next question has to be: So you’ve made it bigger, it had to have gotten heavier. Absolutely not. As much as we designed in thinness, we designed in lightness. So important to understand that if we’re going to transform and push the industry and make new markets with devices that you need. Not “are told to buy” but that you need. You have to accomplish a great weight-to-thinness-to-size ratio.
When you pick up this product, it feels beautiful. It feels beautiful. How important is that? When you hold it in one hand, it feels light. You have a perfectly equal distribution of weight through the product. You’ve seen that before in our products. It just comes out in droves on this product.
The best way to really get a feel is to hold it. The second-best way is to kind of show it. So let me do that really quick.
I’ll put the Surface here. I’m going to grab this MacBook here. And I just want you to look at that. It’s very important to understand. Yeah, kind of cool. Here it is. This product is a great product, of course, and the MacBook, I totally understand why it’s being used. But it is best-in-class when it comes to thinness and lightness. There is no debate.
Now, we have a 12-inch screen. I want to compare it to the 13-inch for a reason. On our 12-inch screen, because of the beautiful screen and all of the rendering and the work of Windows to optimize it, with this screen, when you pick it up, you will look at it, it will feel great. The reason it will feel great is because we have optimized to the scaling of Windows perfectly.
On this 12-inch screen, you get 6 percent more content than on this 13-inch screen. That is a factor of the ratio of 3:2 as well as the scaling. It is gorgeous. But to be super clear, we want you to take both those devices out of your bag. So you have to think about all the weight that happens with these devices. Very important to see that.
Now, the question has to be: Why hasn’t this been done before? It should be that. And I think it’s a fair question to ask. And when we say it’s the thinnest core PC ever made, let me see if I can define that for you perfectly. We’ve partnered super close with Intel. It has been the closest thing to a technical love affair that I could possibly think of.
We spent tireless hours together to put the core i7 in the new Surface Pro 3. (Applause.) When I say “tireless” you think, well, doesn’t everybody put a core i7 in their product? Sure. Sure. But to pack it this thing, how do you do that? How do you get all the punch and performance in a product? Remember, 10 percent more performance than the Surface Pro 2 in this thin of a package.
I can go through all 100 custom parts it took to do that. I won’t. I want to talk about one part. It’s probably the most significant of the parts. I’ll hold the device so you can continue to get a shot of it. But look at the fan that you see up there. We talk about fanless all the time. Fanless is an interesting concept. That was something people talked about three years ago when they talked about tablets.
This thing is fanless. Another way to say fanless is “thin.” Another way to say fanless is “cool” to the touch. Another way to say fanless is you don’t feel the air.
So what we designed in our product as you know from Surface Pro 2. Take a quick look at Surface Pro 3. Do you see that perimeter vent going around here? That same vent in Surface Pro 2, that same technology invented came into this small package.
Then we reinvented the fan. We were able to make it 30 percent more efficient than any fan in any product today. Then we reinvented the fin on the fan, and we’re able to radially emit air throughout the entire product so you never feel it. You don’t hear it. You don’t even see it.
Now, that seems simple, but super complex. I’m proud of the team, and I know there’s a bunch of MEs right now in Redmond going, “Thanks for saying that, that’s a big deal, you don’t know how hard and blah, blah, blah.” It’s great. It is amazing.
But let’s talk about the next step. You can, again, talk about details all you want. But at the end of the day, every part had to come together perfectly to make it this thin. We call it “designed to fit.” But it doesn’t stop at design. It then goes to machining. We call that “machined to fit.” Every single unit that comes off the line, every single Surface Pro 3 that comes off the line is custom machined.
We optically measure almost every part. We then machine down the beautiful magnesium that you see. We then put it together so we squeeze all air out with a pressurized cavity to control the air in the device itself.
We then push and push and push and we built the thinnest optical stack ever built on a device this size at 0.75 millimeters.
And then you say, “Well, what have you compromised? What have you taken away to do all that?” Nothing. You love your battery life on your tablet. This gets more performance than the Surface Pro 2, which got plenty of accolades.
As a matter of fact, over 20 — 15 — there’s a number in there — percent more battery life in this product than any product Surface has shipped before.
But then you say, “Well, then, didn’t the device get weaker? It’s a thinner piece of glass, isn’t it?” No, no, it’s the same unbelievably strong chassis that I’m about to drop, and it doesn’t break, and we don’t worry. You don’t worry at all. (Applause.) It is the same product, the same build, the same finish, the seamless quality that you see where every line matters because if you’re going to make these devices personal, they have to be.
I’m going to give this to you, Joanna, and there’s a reason I’m going to give it to you. The reason I’m giving it to you is because I read an article that you wrote on May 5th and I thought it was super inspiring. It was a little bit late, but it was inspiring. No, for me, it was a timely article, don’t get me wrong.
But I’m going to give it to you because I want you to feel how light it is. I kind of want you to see the screen size as well. I can put this on the scale if you want, but it’s getting heavy up there. (Laughter.) You take that. Just take a look at it. And that’s for you to keep, by the way.
PARTICIPANT: Wow.
PANOS PANAY: Thank you so much. Yeah, that’s cool. (Applause.)
If you’re going to talk about performance, if you’re going to talk about performance, let’s show some of that, shall we? Because it’s important. I just showed you a form factor that for sure is a tablet. It’s going to be hard to debate it. It’s beautiful.
Let me introduce you to the Surface Pro 3 docking station. I’m going to take this device out, you can see it up there. Why is a docking station important? Well, you need performance at your desk as well. If you’re that mobile professional and you want to go kill it in the field, but then you come back and you’re going to dock and you’re going to use this as your full PC, this docking station lets you display out to a 4K monitor. Very important, right? 4K, super-hot buzzword right now, people. Pay attention. 4K is cool.
You then go out and you display to your 4K and you can do full work. Now, what you’re seeing here is the full power of Windows and, again, the beauty of Windows. All the work happening there and the power of the full PC is here. And I’m showing it to you.
There are four groups of apps here. You can see doctor up top. Now you see the architects. Then you see artists and Microsoft Office. The reason we put these four apps here is not because I’m a doctor or an architect or an artist. I am none of those things, I can only dream to be.
There are doctors out there like Dr. Patel who inspire me continuously. It’s quite impressive what they do in saving lives, and I continue to be inspired by that.
But it is to show you that this technology here is something that gets removed between the doctor and the patient. It’s the full power of the PC for collecting data and creating data, which is so important.
But to show you the real speed, I’m going to open Revit here. And this is a really important thing because to show the full power of the PC, you have something like this, which is so powerful in building information, modeling tool, this is a big deal. Just watch how I click and it opens into the full model, how fast that is, very cool. (Applause.)
And as I zoom into the scaled model, you can see me zoom with my mouse and keyboard, because presumably I’m docked at my desk. And I can use this full model as I please. I can touch the screen, of course, I can rotate it. I can do all the things that you would expect to do with both touch, mouse — and pen, which we’ll talk about in a bit — that show it off.
Now, it’s not just inspiring to see the power of it. It’s also inspiring when you go and talk to customers and you show it to them. And you say you can do so much with this. I know you have your iPad. I also know it’s not working for a lot that you want it to work for.
And when you sit down and you go hey — you sit with a company like Coca-Cola or LVMH or BMW and they get inspired by the opportunity to use this not only as their tablet but full-powered PC, you get inspired.
But more inspiring than that is the work that people use this product for. And a lot of it is Photoshop. And today we’re going to bring a few things to you that you haven’t seen before that I’m super proud of.
But I’m not the right person to do that. But I want you to notice that when this product is being used how powerful it is in the hand, how much work it can actually do for you, and how beautiful it really can be.
I’d like to invite Michael Goff, the vice president of experience design from Adobe, to come up here and show you a little bit about what Photoshop is working on. (Applause.) Hey, Michael.
MICHAEL GOFF: Thanks, Panos.
PANOS PANAY: Thanks for coming.
MICHAEL GOFF: This is awesome. So I’ve got to start by telling you the first time I got my hands on this thing, I was blown away. If you take the power of Photoshop and you put it on a device like this, it’s a creative’s dream come true. This is everything, all I need, right here.
You know, it’s a really great time to be a creative. Technology is bringing more mobility, more natural interaction and more expressiveness to all our tools.
In fact, with the rapid pace of change, you’d think it would be hard for us to keep up. But between Microsoft and Adobe, we’ve got that covered.
Our customers already love Surface Pro, but they told us they wanted Photoshop to take better advantage of the screen, the pen and the touch.
One of the great benefits of moving to the creative cloud is that we can innovate faster. We can also deliver those innovations to our customers right when we’re done. Today, I’m going to show you one example. So this is a sneak peek of Photoshop CC optimized for touch on Surface Pro 3. (Applause.)
The first thing you’re going to notice is the new interface. All the icons are 200 percent larger. It’s really, really easy to interact with the screen. The pen input is natural. The performance is great. Both the performance of the software and the hardware working together.
My favorite is how easy it is to move around. I can pinch and zoom. We find that artists like to get really in close to work on the details, and then go right back out to look at the context.
Panning is straightforward. It’s a lot more natural than using the scroll bars. And if you hold your fingers down for a second, you can pan, tilt, zoom, move around anyplace you want, get totally lost. It’s a lot like working with a piece of paper on a desktop.
And if you do get lost, simple two-finger double tap takes you right back to where you started. (Applause.)
So there’s a lot more in this upcoming version of Photoshop. So I hope you guys all try it. This is also just the beginning. There’s a lot more that I think you can expect from our partnership in the not-too-distant future, so stay tuned. Thank you. (Applause.)
PANOS PANAY: Thanks, good work. That is super cool. It’s been great. We’ve been talking to a lot of developers. It’s been showing Surface Pro 3 to them, it’s been great that they’ve kept it under wraps. But when you get to such a high-resolution screen and you get to something so beautiful, things have to come together with the applications as well. And we’ll talk to that in just a minute.
But before we do that, I want to talk about the kickstand. You probably wonder, why are you showing a picture of Anastasia on the screen? I don’t really have a good answer, I just wanted to introduce you to Anna. You guys seemed to like her last year when she did her Skype video, and I thought you’d want to see her again.
I like using it this way because, obviously, my children are very special to me. And as they watch, I’m proud of them and I want to point out that Anastasia is an absolutely wonderful child. When you meet her, you would just — she is absolutely my favorite. And don’t judge me for that. I know you all have favorites, too. So don’t even say anything. At home, you know you all have favorites, it’s just a fact. My kids know, it’s just clear, she’s amazing.
But look at what she’s doing in front of the Surface right now. Just look at what she’s doing. Sleeping, got it. But she’s watching Netflix, kind of. I’m a terrible father. Probably a terrible parent. My wife is here, she comes to these events with me. She’s clearly terrible as well, apparently.
This is how we put Anastasia to bed, as it turns out. We put the Surface out, she loves it. She watches Netflix. So we call this “Anastasia mode.” It’s important to note that it was not a mode we designed for at all, but man, has it turned out very well.
The kickstand does a lot here. It does a lot. It does a lot for a tablet. But it’s not just about a tablet, is it? Not at all. So I want to show you the new kickstand and introduce it to you, if that’s OK.
I’m going to put it in Anastasia mode for just a minute. And you can see I just opened it. It was really that simple. And we hold it at a 22-degree angle in its first stop. It’s the original Surface angle. It’s been a fantastic angle for us, and it’s brought out a lot of new modes, just like Anastasia mode.
But I want to show you a little bit more detail on what we’ve done. And I’ll explain why. But first, I’m going to show you a different mode, and it’s called canvas mode, and it’s a new one. But as I do this, watch underneath. As you watch the hinge of this product start to bend itself, and I’m going to show you what’s happening. Exactly what’s happening. Note, this product is three years in the making. This hinge has taken every single detail. The amount of custom parts to bring to you full friction so you can bring it all the way down at any position you want to land it at 150 degrees is intentful.
It’s super important that you understand the modes that this product can do. Because if, Michael, you’re using Photoshop now and you are a creator, and if you needed a canvas to write on, and with every single detailed iteration that the design team worked on to pick the perfect canvas angle, we landed 150 degrees. And with an amazing palm block technology, you now can do the drawing you want to do if you were an artist.
But is that what it was designed for? Anastasia mode? Was it designed for canvas mode? This hinge, why go through all the trouble?
It’s a word we call “lapability.” Lapability is a coined term, of course, I’ve been super judged for it, which is really interesting, and blamed for making up words. And maybe we have, and that’s fine, you can write it again. But it is the word we use right now in our labs and as a team.
We know that to really build a tablet that can replace the laptop, and when you asked that question, Satya, this is critical: It has to work in your lap. “Lapability.”
Now, we thought it worked in your lap amazingly. Look at Joanna. She’s using it in her lap with her legs crossed. That’s just an accident, we didn’t practice this. It’s critical. But to get that right, let’s talk about something else.
I want to introduce you to the Surface Pro type cover. (Applause.) Beautiful product for sure. It’s gotten a lot of great accolades, if you will, from the typing feel and experience. It’s got a lot of accolades from thinness, and we’ve made it even thinner. Of course we made it thinner, because when you put this device in your bag, it has to feel as thin as any device you’ve ever had. And, by the way, it is by far, even with the cover on, the thinnest core product every created.
But it doesn’t stop there. To really get it right, to really get productivity right, there are some great leaders in this industry that said it perfectly. You cannot compromise on the mouse or the typing experience, you just cannot. So we put a ton of energy into the track pad this time around.
While we got a ton of praise — let’s be clear, we did not get any praise for our track pad. (Laughter.) I am super clear, I heard it, we heard it, oh, my gosh, did the engineers hear it? It’s unbelievable. This track pad is 68 percent larger than the previous track pad before it. We’ve reduced friction by 78 percent. We’ve almost reinvented it to the point where now the two-finger scrolling comes to life. You can start using all the power of Windows integrated into this track pad itself.
And while I’m talking about the track pad and you’re, like, seriously, Panos, a track pad? Yeah. Seriously. Turns out, on a tablet, when there isn’t a pointer, it’s really hard to get stuff done. Really hard. And we kind of underestimate that. The power of Office, the power of Windows, all that comes with a mouse, it’s super important.
Now, there’s stuff you can do from viewing and maybe some light editing, but be super clear, this is critical.
Now, the typing experience, going back to it, we’ve lowered user fatigue. We’ve made it the fastest typing possible. We’ve created a great feel. But is it really just about that? Obviously not. It’s about being able to click in and use it on your lap. And so let’s talk about what we’ve done to change things.
You’re going to take a look here. And what you’ll see is the classic view of Surface Pro 2. Note, what I mean by that is I’ve taken the second angle that we’re so familiar with and I’ve put it here on my knees. It’s pretty close. Given this is a friction hinge, I’m just kind of guessing, I can pick the angle I want now.
But I want to show you something new that’s important. While people say Surface Pro 2 works on the lap, and I saw two of you — three of you using it on your lap, that’s great, that’s cool. It does work on your lap, I agree. But not perfect. This changes all of that.
And the reason is because you get this looseness in your hinge. And when you’re typing, you kind of have to feel like, where should I put my — and there are too many thoughts. And when you put too many thoughts in a customer’s head, or a person who is using it, you really do find a place where they get stuck. And when you’re thinking too much, when it should be that simple, it doesn’t work. It’s one of the beauties of tablets. It’s one of the beauties of laptops.
So I’m going to show you one simple move here that’s important. I’m about to click in the cover to the screen. And that’s going to stabilize it as good as any laptop you’ve ever used. And I want you to kind of see that happen. So watch here. This is what you’re looking at. Watch how it clicks in. (Click.)
Now, that is subtle. But like we said before, sometimes the most subtle an innovation can have the largest impact. This now magnetically seals itself to the screen and it starts to change the way the device feels in your lap. The stability is unbelievable.
When you start to change positions, I can change them in any way and I don’t lose any stability. I can put my hands on it just like this with my legs crossed. I can then change the friction hinge and drop it down just like this. I have the ability to pick any position I want and any angle I need. It sounds a lot like a laptop.
And when you say, “Can a tablet replace the laptop?” We cannot underestimate how critical these elements are. I hope you thought that was pretty cool. We’re very proud of that hinge, and we’re proud of the team for doing that. (Applause.)
Now, in designing a product, I’m going to leave this here for you to see. Just to be fair, give me just a second. I’m going to click a keyboard here so you can get a real view. Just to be super clear. OK.
When you’re designing a product, you have to design something that feels unbelievably familiar. It has to feel familiar to people. We don’t talk about design a lot, and I’ve gotten into a lot of tech stuff, and I understand that. But hold on, pull back for just a minute, pull back. You have to know what you’re trying to accomplish. And sometimes you start with specs, and many times you start with customers, and a lot of times you just have goals for your products.
But in this product, to really bring it to life, we wanted to give you something to make sure it was clear and build something that was just even more than that, that it was just familiar. And really, what is more familiar that a piece of paper?
You’ve been using it your whole life. Your children, if you have any, they use them today. You send them to school with three-ring binders, there’s no doubt. You’ve had those spiral notebooks — do you remember those when you were kids? You had those. It’s super familiar. It looks a lot like a 3:2 aspect ratio, as it turns out. It looks a lot like this device.
And the chemistry between the size of a piece of paper and a device like this, that’s not an accident. That’s a design point. And it’s a critical one for this device. It’s what makes it familiar. It’s what, then, makes it seamless. It’s what makes it personal. And one of the things about tablets, which we’re going to talk about now, is they have to be personal. Mainly because what you’re doing on it is just that.
And so when you hold it, it also has to feel comfortable. And when you hold it and you’re holding a pen in your hand, it has to feel light. I know, Joanna, I’m sorry. You’ll get a pen and a keyboard in just a minute, I swear. Then we’ll switch out your device. (Laughter.)
This is an important posture. It is one that is very familiar, a piece of paper and a pen. And the pen looks familiar because it is the size of a pen that you’d normally hold. It’s not a stylus, it’s not meant to be thin, it’s not meant to be cheap, it’s meant to be pronounced as a pen. It feels weighty, it feels good, it’s meant to be the weight that it is. So when you write, it feels great.
But writing on a PC is clunky. It’s true. It’s hard to use, and a lot of you have questions. Is anyone really going to write on a PC? Well, it doesn’t just mean writing. It takes experiences and apps. No doubt, you need to have great experiences. And no doubt, it’ll be those experiences that take the clumsiness out of this and make it feel organic and natural like a piece of paper.
I’m going to open a fun app for you that I think is pretty inspiring, it’s pretty cool. And the head of development for the New York Times crossword is here, Matt, where are you? Hey, dude. You should be pretty proud of this app, it’s very cool.
I’m going to show you the New York Times crossword app. And when I say things need to be personal, let me see if I can show you what that means. Does anyone in here do crosswords? I know some don’t want to admit it, but I know a lot of people do. The New York Times crossword is a classic, for sure.
And when you look at this, I’m going to show you how pen and touch come together in such a beautiful way. But more importantly, in a natural way. If you look down here, you’ll see that I’m holding — going up and down on what would be the clues. I’m looking at one here, it’s called, “it’s pumped.” That’s a pretty cool clue. Now, if I know the answer to that, which I do, the first thing I would do is cross it out. That’s what you do when you’re doing a crossword, right? You cross out the clue. And you go up here, and watch how I personally write it in. This is my handwriting as I write it.
Now, watch how it transfers itself to actual digital content. Did you see that? (Applause.) That’s important. We took nothing personal away in showing this app, yet we’ve gone from an analog to a digital place, which is so critical in making that feel seamless. Pretty cool.
Now, I’m going to show you something that’s a little bit more personal to me now. (Break in audio, webcast buffering) — which is kind of cool, and by the way, I’ll tell you what, Matt, you have this. And if you can solve that puzzle that you created by the end of the show, you can keep it. But if you don’t, I’m taking it back, just so you know. (Laughter.)
I’m going to talk about another application now, it’s called Final Draft. Final Draft is near and dear to my heart. I’m going to tell you why. I have a brother, he’s in the movie industry. He makes movies, his name, Andrew Panay. Him and Relativity have combined to create a movie that’s coming out July 2nd, it’s a great flick, I’ve seen it more than I want to, but it’s an amazing flick, and I’m proud of it.
And what we do, my brother and I, which is a consistent thing, is he has a movie or I have a product. And we share thoughts. And when we’re sharing thoughts, it’s nice, I mean, we feel like brothers, it’s a good thing. But the real point is we have a word and it’s called “notes.” I didn’t learn this word until I started working with him and a lot of execs in Hollywood.
“Notes” is a common term. Notes is a word when you have a script and you pass it back and forth, you give each other your notes. When you watch a movie, you write down your notes and you pass your notes back and forth. And it’s not like notes when you were in sixth grade and it was like a love letter note. Like, yeah, will you go out to dinner with me? Yes? No? Maybe? Not that kind of note. It’s a note that’s like criticism. And when you write it down, it’s to make something better.
This here is an app called Final Draft. What you’re seeing is the full power of the PC as I hold it in one hand. Note how I don’t get tired. Note how there’s no fatigue. I’m holding it like I would in a normal piece of paper. That’s the brilliance of the thing and the light in this product in the 3:2 aspect ratio at 12 inches.
In this app running in the full core right now of the PC that it is, I’m now pushing the entire “Earth to Echo” script — which is the movie that comes out on July 2nd. That script now is in my hands, and I can edit it real time. Watch how I put the ink to pixel on this screen, and you can see the detail of what we did, which I’ll talk about in a minute, which makes this feel like a real pen.
I can put my hand down, like anything you’d expect when you’re writing. It’s called palm block where nothing moves. And when I get the pen down, you can see the finite detail that I can write and how the ink comes out of the tip.
One of the classic problems in writing is parallax. I told you, we built the thinnest optical stack ever created. Why? Not so I can show off a drop on stage, but to remove parallax from the product. Another way to say parallax, which is just silly to a customer, to a user. The pen tip is right where the ink is. When you write with parallax, you see that latency, you see that gap, and it makes it hard to think when you write. And it turns out, when you write, you are thinking.
But here, I’m going to give my brother a few notes. And what’s unique about this application is you can only do it on the Windows platform. This app specifically is designed for Surface Pro 3 and optimized for Surface Pro 3. When we sat with the Hollywood execs and we sat down with Final Draft, we said, “We’ve got something beautiful.” And instead of when you just pull a final draft on a tablet where you can only read it and then make the phone call to do the edits, you now can write your thoughts in and you can say, “Hey, Andrew, too much talking. Too much kids.” I love kids, but too much, man, it’s an action scene. Go with the action.
But as I write, my brother can open up his Surface, his PC, his iPad, and those notes synch to the cloud with OneDrive. They push right to him, and he’s now real time being productive, which is very, very cool because now my notes are coming in live and it’s my personal handwriting that’s doing it. Pretty cool, right? (Applause.)
Let’s take a look at the screen. I want to show you the screen now because this is just a great opportunity to do it.
I’m also going to play the speaker through my headset if I can do it. Because I want you to hear the front-facing speakers on this device that are 40 percent more powerful than anything we’ve shipped and are best-in-class in the industry and you’re going to see that. And front-facing for a reason. It’s why I’m going to use the mike, because we don’t want them pointing back, to the sides, or behind the device. We want that natural sound to come at you. So you get the full beauty of it.
Now, check out the power of Windows here. I’m showing you side-by-side computing. There’s rumors of other side-by-side computing, this is the side-by-side computing, this is Windows. (Laughter.) There’s no tricks, there’s no gimmicks, there’s nothing. It just works, and it’s super powerful.
I’m going to play the movie, and what you’re going to see, which is kind of cool, is right next to the specs that I’ve been writing on in this script, I’m now looking at the edited scene. Very cool.
Now I’m going to show you one more thing. As I pull this apart, I just want to show you the beauty of this screen in its fullest. Take a quick look. Carl, can you get that? So I’m going to get the sound up here so you see the front speaker. (Movie plays.) Very cool. (Applause.)
Even more powerful, I can come right back. I just watched the movie. Being created right now in real time, that’s a scene never seen before, and then I can look at the script that’s been written, and the power of Windows is letting me make a movie at the same time as I watch it, which is a very important concept, very cool, right? (Applause.)
I’m going to switch gears really quick. And you know what? Instead of picking up a device, this time I’m just going to pick up something a little bit more familiar. This is nothing more than a piece of paper and a pen. I know it’s not all that exciting at a tech press event like this, but let’s just talk about it for a minute.
I want to just think about the power of Microsoft coming together as one Microsoft. I want to think about, with you for just a minute, all the things that come together in such an amazing company to bring a device like this together.
And if the design point is something as simple as we believe what can be digital will be digital, you have to start removing barriers of technology very quickly. A piece of paper and a pen is as analog as it gets. It is as natural as it gets. The design points through the device shine through. When you lay it down, it feels like a piece of paper. You can write on it at any given time. You can move it and use it to replace your 13-inch laptops very quickly. Yet, then you can obviously use it as a tablet any time. But, ultimately, removing that barrier of technology is critical to make it feel great.
Critical. But how? It takes all of Microsoft to come together to build a device. And Satya and I spent plenty of time thinking about this specific thing. And we get together and we’ve had plenty of conversations. What do you do? The power of Windows. The power of Office. The power of OneNote. The immense opportunity in the cloud with OneDrive. So important to bring those properties together, but not just with words, with experiences.
And I’m just going to show you one here today. But the first thing I’m going to do is explain how the experience is created. It was just a piece of paper and a pen. That was it. What do you do when you have these two things? You write. But there’s never a barrier to write, is there? You just click the pen and you put it to paper. And you write your thoughts. It turns out, people feel like that’s personal.
I use it myself to journal. I know my mom keeps a laundry list of all the things she has to do on a piece of paper. I know there’s plenty of people out there that they just write it down and they wish they could take it with them everywhere.
I want to show you one thing today and I’m going to turn off my device to show it to you. Now, I want you to just watch. And the seamless event that you are a student in class and you needed to capture that thought. Or you’re crazy like me and you wake up at 3:00 in the morning because you have some really bad idea that you need to write down.
You need to pick up your device, your piece of paper, and you need to click your pen because you know you can write. And when you click it, even if your device is off, you have to know you can write immediately. (Applause.)
Now, it goes just one step further. You now have this amazing writing experience, it’s unparalleled. We’ve removed parallax. We have the lowest latency in the industry. We have a beautiful-feeling pen tip. You can write in detail. You can use Photoshop and make art. You can have 256 points of pressure. But more important than all of that is you can write your notes and the minute you click your pen, they go right into the cloud. And when they go into the cloud, they go to every single device that’s in this room right now. Every single device in your pocket, every single device in your laps, every single device in your hands. All of them. And the power of OneNote brings that beauty to you everywhere.
Every thought you had that you didn’t lose because instantaneously you captured it went with you. That’s powerful. That’s super powerful. That’s everything. That’s the Microsoft cloud coming to life. That’s Office, that’s Windows, that’s the power of hardware and Surface all coming together to make that happen. Very cool, right?
But it doesn’t stop. Let me show you one more thing, and this is just for fun because I get to do it. I’m going to unlock my device. And you’ll see, right when I unlock it, it takes me to the full OneNote. OK? Now that I’m in full OneNote, you’ll see that my notes can go with me anywhere, like I talked about, which is cool.
I’m going to go one extra step, and I’m going to show you just a cool little thing just to show you how powerful this device can be.
I open the camera. There are two beautiful cameras on this product, as you would expect. And they are gorgeous, and you will see that later, and you’ll get them in your speeds and feeds for sure.
But I’m going to hold up my device. Can you guys see that? And I’m just capturing the image behind me. So you know, I’m just capturing the image, it’s nothing more than that. But instead of taking a photo, I’m going to double-click my pen and watch what happens. It shows me that I’m activating OneNote, which is important, and it brings in what’s known as an acid layer on top, and we just call it that from a design perspective. It’s not really acid, don’t worry. (Laughter.)
And then I’m going to take my pen and I’m going to capture the thought that I wanted to capture. If you wanted to capture anything because you wanted to edit that note and share it with somebody, how would you do it? How about this as a natural way? And just let go of the pen. And while that’s just an image, it floats itself just like that into OneNote. Very cool. (Applause.)
Now I’m going to take it and I’m going to show you what I can do with it. I’m going to make a little bit of a mess because I’m upside down. But if you can get a close-up of that — Carl, if you can come into that a little bit. You’ll see as I color the S on the product, I color the U, I’m in a place where while I can’t write upside down very well and it’s kind of silly, I am in a place where I’m able to do a bit of tracing to not only capture thoughts, but check out how cool this is. Imagine if you just double-click somebody and you wanted to do a self-portrait. And then I do the editing. Now, I can choose, do I want the ink to paper? Do I want the ink to my device? Do I want the ink just to be there when I move anything that’s underneath it? I do. Very cool. (Applause.)
Now, I remember this scenario for me, and this is an interesting one. On an airplane, my boss on an airplane, and Stephen is here today. Can pull out a magazine from that airplane and you flip through the magazine. Have you ever done that? Of course you have. And when you’re flipping through, you find this page that’s really interesting to you.
Now, some of us are rude and we rip the paper out because you want to keep it, and then you put ink to it. It’s almost natural, like, here’s my thought. And then it gets left on my desk.
Think about this, read this, what are you going to do with this? This is capturing every thought. Now, I’m opening up a Web page here. This is an interesting one. Now, this is an article that Joanna had written maybe on May 5th. Yeah. That’s yours. It’s well written, by the way. Yeah, the video is good too, I mean, it’s all good. (Laughter.) You did an amazing job. I mean, I’m super impressed.
But I’m going to read a paragraph here that is really impactful to me and the Surface team. I’d love for you to listen to it because sometimes when you write, it’s different than when you listen, it’s really interesting. Yeah.
What I really want to come out of the envelope one day — which is spectacular — is a piece of hardware that pushes both Airs together without compromise. That’s interesting. Yep. That means a super-slim machine with a touch screen. Huh. Well done. And some sort of keyboard. 4G connectivity, multi-day battery life, but I want other features, too, that can liberate us from ways we have interacted with computers in the PC era.
Now, I’m going to double-click this so you can get the concept. It’s going to bring me back to that same layer. You see that? Carl, you got it? And then I’m just going to take it, the clip I want, and I’m going to send it to OneNote. And now I have what I need to do.
And so what I’m going to do is just send Joanna a small note and say, “Joanna, check out Surface Pro 3. I’m pretty sure, it meets your needs.” (Laughter.)
Now, here’s what’s cool about that. I write the ink, I edit the document, even better, since Joanna and I are using the same account, she now has it forever on her device as well. So in just a minute when it synchs to the cloud, she now gets the power of my note on the PC that I’ve given her from before.
Folks, we are super, super proud of Surface Pro 3. I am sure Satya, I am sure, that this is the tablet that can replace the laptop. I am sure. And I hope that when you get your hands on it, you love it. And for those of you at home, it goes on sale tomorrow. You can pre order it starting at $799. Very important to understand. It comes in three configs: Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7.
For those of you here, I could talk all day, and it feels like I have. (Laughter.) I think I might be done talking. But for you to get the real feel of this device, you have to touch it. For you to feel how personal it is, you have to hold it. For you to feel how productive it can be, you have to type on it, you have to write on it. That experience is critical.
So what we’re doing, we’re going to give each of you a device today on your way out. There will be a process to do that, for sure, but we are so proud of this device, we want it in your hands right now.
On behalf of Microsoft, on behalf of the Surface team, on behalf of Satya and Stephen, I’d like to say thank you. I hope you guys have a wonderful day. (Applause, cheers.)
PARTICIPANT: All right. Panos mentioned there’s a process. Here’s the process: Some of our lovely invited guests, you have a guest badge. My colleague Matt Chapman is going to help you at the coat check area with your device.
If you are a member of the press or analyst corps and you have one of these badges, these badges right here, they’re very specific. We’re going to punch them with a punch card when we hand you a device. It has a keyboard and a pen with it. On your way out, we’re going to punch these cards a second time. We’re going to punch the cards, Paul, not you. We thought about it. (Laughter.)
And we’re going to ask you to sign a loaner agreement that says you’ve accepted this from us on loan. It has the power cord, the box, and if you’d like a bag, you’re free to take one of those.
We would like you to join us in the lounge area for as long as you would like to stay and enjoy your device, talk to members of the Surface team.
When I say that there are enough for everyone, we did a count. We know exactly how many of these we gave out, so there’s no need to jump up and rush when I say let’s bring the carts out and please take your time as you walk over and grab a device. Thank you. (Applause.)
END
