at long last, Microsoft is joining the current computing age

Microsoft's anouncement of its new brand of tablets is really big news. Considering -

• The ripeness of this new product (surface being a very long term project in Microsoft); 
• Redmond's past ability to price products competitvely; 
• Amazon's Kindle Fire failure to stand up to the iPad as a truly equal competitor; 
• Unlike other dominant players, the new tablet on the block is not suspiciously similar to Apple's stuff. 

The surface tablet appears to be the real thing, and for us - consumers, users and technology-philes, this is great news.The age of pervasive computing, at least at this early stage, duplicates the old Apple-Microsoft enmity, but this time the competition is both on Hardware and Software. Real technological compeition is here. It can only benefit us all.