Steve Ballmer was up to his usual antics, while present at a meeting with the Silicon Valley tech startup accelerator RocketSpace. Ballmer and CFO Tami Reller talked about Windows 8 and the Microsoft CEO casually played with a Surface RT tablet, highlighting the use of the Touch Cover, that he even threw to a developer in the crowd.
Ballmer claims that the Surface RT is own personal device, but it was quickly hidden in a big and not available to be handled by developers. Although RocketSpace CEO Duncan Logan asked about the price of the Surface Tablet, the MS CEO kept quiet on that matter. Earlier this month Ballmer advised us to expect a sweet spot between $300 and $800 as the price of the new products. The official wasn’t only there to stir controversy, but also gain some developers on his company’s side. Windows 8 is making the big debut in less than a month and it needs those developers that Ballmer was chanting about years ago.
It appears that Microsoft already passed the 2000 applications market in the Windows Store last week, so everything is on track. The Microsoft official said that next year over 250 million Windows PCs could be sold, generating millions of dollars for people just like the developers Ballmer met and he was keen to emphasize that to make the platform even more appealing. Apps will be available exclusively from the Windows Store for the Surface RT, so Microsoft has to deliver an experience at least on par with what Windows Phone first offered, for example.
