Microsoft Announces the Surface Tablet
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Microsoft announced the first Surface tablets in June 2012, marking an unusual move for a company that traditionally licensed Windows to PC manufacturers rather than building flagship computers itself.
Surface RT used an ARM-based NVIDIA Tegra processor and Windows RT, while Surface Pro was planned around Intel x86 hardware and full Windows 8. The built-in kickstand and thin Touch Cover keyboard tried to combine tablet portability with laptop-style productivity.
The two models exposed the central problem Microsoft was trying to solve. ARM offered better mobile power characteristics but could not run ordinary legacy Windows desktop applications, while x86 preserved compatibility at the cost of more power and heat. Surface became Microsoft’s long-running experiment in bridging those two worlds.