April Hardware Event – Speculate Away!

I was listening to Mary Jo and Paul talking about hardware, and I wondered what y’all’s thoughts on this are? For myself, I can’t see Microsoft coming out with a “pure” laptop. As MJ said, it’s just not a new category enough. I do expect a “pop and drop” CPU update to the SP5 and Surface Book, keep the rest of the hardware but update the CPU and keep calling it the same thing. I think that’s easy enough to justify and is probably enough of a lateral change to not affect the rollout of hardware to the rest of the world.

But what else? The thing that people have been asking for which I think they could surprise us with is a “Surface Studio Monitor.” No new computer, but a standalone screen with the tilt and pen. I don’t think Microsoft will release that without the digitizer, but I do think a monitor would be a logical extension of existing product lines, and we definitely know there’s demand.