Business Model Dances – Jean-Louis Gassée

Microsoft announces its Surface tablets…pardon…Tablet PCs, and quickly finds itself between two business models: Are they offering a vertically integrated device, a la Xbox; or are they licensing a software platform, as in Windows/Office? As remarked upon by Horace Dediu and others, one day Ballmer says:

“We are working real hard on the Surface. That’s the focus. That’s our core.”

and the next, with equal strength of conviction:

“Surface is just a design point.”

Interesting take on business model changes in the google-apple-amazon-microsoft wars.