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Comment by ghusbands | Hacker News Reader

This seems to heavily dilute the Surface brand. Until now, you could get a Surface device and know you were getting a useful, independent writing/touch surface and a good-to-great keyboard/trackpad to attach. Now we're given a laptop with no convertibility whatsoever; not even a 360 degree hinge like many similar-spec laptops?

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It started as a table. Moved to a tablet. Then a laptop. Brand dilution doesn't seem like a priority for Microsoft.

Wish they had more sensible and less confusing naming. This is not fun to explain when people ask. (Same can be said of Google and a bunch of other tech companies too though.)

> Brand dilution doesn't seem like a priority for Microsoft.

It's an euphemism considering the whole windows mail live hotmail with skydrive now onedrive thing.

It's not a dilution. It's quite the opposite, it is an expansion of what Surface can be. And let's reach back to the original Surface that was envisioned a decade ago that no one remembers, you remember that table? That Surface? And how it became a tablet years and years later? I think their marketing team has thought about this but, abstractly it seems that they are trying to cover all existing hardware concepts that are in the world today in the Surface line, phone, tablet, laptop, maybe TV. That's plan now of Microsoft's strategy. What's next up Microsofts sleeve, HoloLens. They are still chasing that dream that they envisioned with Surface but it's not going to be realized with the Surface hardware, they are a means to an end (hardware manufacturing experience, keep and grow talent, test device interfaces, implant touchable everything on all devices)

The way you speak is really similar to what I would expect of a Press release in response to these comments.

Are you a professional in the marketing industry?

Hmmm, I could be, possibly not?

Heavily dilute? That's a bit dramatic. There was a tablet, now there's a laptop too.

How is this diluting anything? The brand still stands for solid products (not just writing/drawing and this still does has a touchscreen). here are just several models denoted by the second word in the product name.

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