Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio: The perfect Windows 11 laptop?
Disclosure: Microsoft is a client of the author.
When the Microsoft Surface line was created, I thought then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was making the same mistake he made with Zune — and, in a way, he was. But at least with the Surface, it was a market he understood. The Surface did better, but was plagued by the lousy strategy of copying a competitor with a clone-like product. The first Surface tried too hard to be a better iPad, and the iPad itself wasn’t the success the iPod and iPhone had been.
Typically, a better competitive strategy is to try to one-up a rival, not create a clone. This strategy has been demonstrated by Sun against IBM, Toyota against Ford and GM, Tesla against the existing car industry, and Apple with both the iPod and iPhone.