Businesses are committed to Surface Pro 3 – even before availability
While the Surface Pro line will run traditional desktop apps to your heart’s content, we’ve also been working with our ISV partners to build modern touch apps including offerings from Airstrip, Citrix, Dynamics, IFS, Jeppesen, Micros, Sage, SAP, Sungard and many more.
Over the last year we’ve also seen 3rd party hardware accessories designed for Surface that complete line of business scenarios for customers, including mobile and fixed point of sale enclosures, charging carts, ruggedized cases and vehicle and cockpit mounts. It has been a busy year and it is getting even more exciting.
When we unveiled Surface Pro 3, we talked about how lots of pro-sumers want a tablet, but need a laptop. We’ve found that businesses are no different. Surface Pro 3 appeals to businesses that are interested in the opportunities that come along with increased mobility, but are challenged by the complexity and cost that can be associated with purchasing, managing and securing a laptop and an iPad for a single user. Simply said, Surface Pro 3 can replace a laptop and an iPad. Why should businesses buy both?
Big businesses are already choosing Surface Pro 3 even before we’ve released it
Companies such as BMW Group, The Coca-Cola Company and Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy have already committed to purchasing and deploying Surface Pro 3 as one of the choices inside their organizations. We’re proud that these esteemed companies are adopting Surface Pro 3 early to harness the promise of mobility to transform their customer experiences.
To get a better sense of how this promise appeals to our business customers, we asked Jim Scholefield, Chief Technology Officer, The Coca-Cola Company to share some of his thoughts and we’ve captured them here:
Q. What does technology mean to The Coca-Cola Company?
A. Technology is core to the making and selling of our products. From digital and interactive marketing to our application portfolio to support sales order management, we need connectivity, efficiency and reliability. The business looks to the IT organization as a partner to bring new technology and solutions to do things better, faster and cheaper.
Q. Why has The Coca-Cola Company chosen to deploy Surface Pro 3 in its operations?
A. The size, scale and complexity of our environment require us to explore best in class technology. With personal productivity platforms converging between PC’s and tablets we want to be able to leverage new form factors to enable our workforce to use devices that are highly mobile, easy to operate and provide the capability of a traditional PC.
Q. What makes The Coca-Cola Company an industry leader?
A. Coca-Cola’s commitment to our associates, our loyal customers and the communities we all live carries through everything we do and every product we produce. This commitment is truly what sets us apart.
Q. Why is Surface Pro 3 the right choice for you?
A. Productivity is a key driver for the company and Surface Pro 3 is a potential enabler that will allow our workers to be more efficient and nimble in an ever changing landscape.
Today, we’re also announcing that Avanade and Seattle Children’s Hospital have committed to purchasing and deploying Surface Pro 3 inside their organizations. The video below provides a quick glance at how the clinicians and staff at Seattle Children’s plan to put Surface Pro 3 to use in their facilities to enable greater efficiency and improved patient care.
Windows 8.1 Update includes great enhancements important for Surface Pro 3
Part of delivering on the promise of a great laptop replacement is wrapped up in delivering a great Windows experience. All the enhancements in Windows 8.1 Update combine perfectly with Surface Pro 3 to deliver on this promise. Of course, there are important management and security updates but features that improve the mouse and keyboard experience will probably be the most apparent and welcome improvements for many users. These include the option to boot direct to desktop, having all open and pinned modern apps appear in the taskbar, being able to access the taskbar from within a modern app, being able to right-click an app tile to see more options, and being able to find the close and minimize buttons in the upper, right hand corner of modern apps. Surface Pro 3 in combination with Windows 8.1 Update removes these barriers for users and allows them to use the device like they do any other laptop – with desktop apps, mouse and keyboard. But with Surface Pro 3, they get all the power and performance of a full PC in a thin, light tablet form factor. The Windows For Your Business Blog has more details about these Windows improvements.
As JP Gownder, Vice President and Principal Analyst for Forrester Research noted in his blog last week, we believe that with Surface Pro 3, we’re introducing a real contender for those organizations that are considering device consolidation, and we’re eager to see the results that these respected companies experience when they begin to deploy their new devices.
The response from these early Surface Pro 3 business customers has been exciting to see. And while these organizations are large and may have a variety of different needs, the common thread is that they’re all interested in the idea of replacing their traditional laptops with this new form factor that is incredibly thin and light, but without having to compromise on performance or battery life.
For more details about Surface in business, visit surface.com/business.
Thanks,
Cyril Belikoff
Senior Director – Microsoft Surface