One of the elements that seems to be woven throughout the Surface Pro experience is Xbox. The Xbox brand has transcended its gaming console roots, and now permeates every aspect of a more comprehensive entertainment experience. For Day 27 of the 30 Days with Surface Pro series, I am examining the different facets of Xbox in Windows 8 on the Surface Pro.

I’m a fan of Microsoft in general, but I have to admit that it often seems like one business unit has no idea what the next business unit is doing, and Microsoft frequently drops the ball on branding and marketing. I’m sure Microsoft did focus groups and consumer surveys of some sort to make its decision, but in my opinion it would have made more sense to maintain the Zune brand and expand its scope to incorporate all things entertainment. I do, however, see the logic of killing the brand perceived to be flailing, and instead extending the reach of the successful gaming platform that’s already in everyone’s living room, and connected to everyone’s television to provide broader entertainment options.

Even on the Xbox console itself, games are no longer the sole–or sometimes even the primary–focus. Xbox has been transformed into an entertainment hub rather than a gaming console, and that Xbox brand has been integrated into Windows 8 and the Surface Pro. The Windows 8 Music app opens Xbox Music, the Video app opens Xbox, and the Games app opens Xbox Games. If you add the Xbox SmartGlass app you can add a second-screen that enhances SmartGlass-enabled games and movies to provide a more interactive and immersive experience.

Check out Surface Pro, Day 27: The Xbox factor for more about how Xbox enhances entertainment on the Surface Pro tablet.

When the details of Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet first emerged, the one thing that stuck out the most–with the possible exception of the sticker shock from the price–is the seemingly poor battery life. For Day 23 of 30 Days with Surface Pro, I check out the endurance of the Surface Pro battery and find out how well it holds up in real life.

Tablets have excellent battery life. The Surface Pro is technically a tablet, so people expected it to have exceptional battery life. However, most tablets use ARM processors, while the Surface Pro has the same Intel guts as traditional desktop and laptop PCs, so it’s a bit unfair to hold it to the same standard.

When it comes to battery life, the Surface Pro is really more of an ultrabook than a tablet. The ultimate question, though, is whether the Surface Pro delivers adequate bang for the buck. If it has the same insides, and runs the same operating system and software, and gets essentially the same battery life as ultrabooks that cost less, is it worth it? How much are you willing to pay extra just for the flexibility to also use it as a tablet?

Overall, my experience wasn’t as negative as most of the initial reviews and media headlines make it sound. It’s no iPad, but the Surface Pro has respectable battery endurance for the computing power it delivers. Read Surface Pro, Day 23: Battery life for more details about the Surface Pro battery.

Perhaps you’ve heard that we’re in the “post-PC era” now. Thanks to the advent of Apple’s iPhone and iPad, coupled with innovations from younger challengers like Google and Amazon, we face a brave new world where PCs are obsolete.

Well, not quite. You can stop imagining The Matrix and Minority Report, or thinking about Skynet or the singularity. We’re still quite far from any such dystopian future (although self-thinking quadrocoptors armed with weapons and capable of working in harmony together do make you wonder).

The “post-PC era” is dependent on how you define a “PC” in the first place. If you mean a box that sits under your desk built on Intel hardware and running the Microsoft Windows operating system, then I can see how you can make a case that we’re moving beyond that era. However, if you define a “PC” as a “personal computer”, then Macs, Chromebooks, smartphones, and tablets are all still PCs.

I recently explained, “There is an evolution taking place. It’s not “post-PC’ really, any more than a Prius is a “post-combustion” vehicle. As feature phones have evolved into smartphones, and tablets of all sizes have sprung up seemingly out of nowhere, there’s a lot of hype about their impact on the PC market, and how the tablet market is cannibalizing or killing the PC market.”

In that post, I noted that TechCrunch lists Google, Amazon, Samsung, Apple, and Microsoft as the companies racing to dominate the “post-PC era”. I narrowed the list down to just Microsoft and Apple, because they’re the only two who have the “PC-era” element, so they’re the two companies in a position to merge PCs and “post-PCs” together.

It’s Microsoft’s game to lose, though. Microsoft has a virtual monopoly of the desktop OS market–the “PC era”. Microsoft owns a dominant chunk of the productivity software market with Microsoft Office. And, Microsoft has a massive stake in providing the servers, and backend infrastructure (Exchange, SharePoint, Lync) that all of these “post-PC era” devices need to connect to. To top it all off, Microsoft has its own smartphone OS, its own ARM-based mobile device OS, and it has Windows 8 which blurs the line and delivers “PC” and “post-PC” in a single machine.

Microsoft has all of the elements it needs to engineer the evolution from PC to post-PC. Of course, there are alternatives out there for everything Microsoft does. There are other desktop and server operating systems, other office productivity suites, and competing backend and cloud-based services, and–when it comes to smartphones and tablets–Microsoft is late to the game and playing catchup with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms.

It’s Microsoft’s game to lose. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to predict which way the future will take us. Microsoft seems to make major strategic errors and marketing blunders on a regular basis. Of course, people have been slamming Microsoft and writing its obituary for years-decades, really–and Microsoft is still on top of most markets it competes in.

Of course, that was before the Apple iPad. I’m not sure what officially qualifies something as a “fad”, but the iPad is in it’s fourth–going on fifth–iteration, and Apple has sold about 100 million of them so far. And, just in case that alone does not place the tablet outside of the realm of “fad”, just about every other vendor has introduced its own variation on the theme, so there are now hundreds of millions of devices out there being used every day.

To this day, though, there are still those who stubbornly insist that tablets are “toys” designed strictly for “media consumption”, and that they can’t be used for any real work. Well, first I would say that Windows 8 Pro tablets break that mold and redefine what it means to be a PC and/or a tablet. It’s one thing to argue that an iPad isn’t a PC, or that a Linux laptop doesn’t offer the same mobile versatility as an Amazon Kindle Fire, but a Windows 8 Pro tablet is literally a Windows PC that happens to be in tablet form. When docked at your desk it works and acts just like any other Windows desktop or laptop PC, but you can also just grab the tablet and take it to a meeting, or read a book on the Kindle app.

Even without Windows 8 Pro tablets, though, the assertion that tablets can’t be productivity tools still lacks merit. This ZDNet article by Steve Ranger lists out seven reasons that tablets matter for businesses. I predict that by 2015 we will realize that a tablet is just a different form of “personal computer” and stop talking about the PC market and tablet market as separate entities.

Mary points out that without next-generation hardware designed to take advantage of the features and benefits of Windows 8, much of what Microsoft has “reimagined” loses its relevance.

I think that Windows 8 tablets are a foregone conclusion. They’ll appear eventually–probably in sync with the launch of Windows 8 itself. I don’t have tremendous confidence that they will be competitively priced or be able to go head to head with the existing tablets in the market, but I’m sure they’ll at least exist.

What I am more curious about are notebooks or ultrabooks that are “reimagined” to take advantage of Windows 8. I’d like to see some ultrabooks that also have a touchscreen display so you can take advantage of both the Metro and desktop interfaces of Windows 8.

On the desktop side, there are touchscreen monitors available (I know, I have one), but they’re impractical to use. For desktops what we need is new and improved office furniture that makes it more feasible to actually use a touchscreen display.

What do you think? Would you be more excited about Windows 8, or more willing to move to Windows 8 if there was unique hardware designed to leverage its unique features and capabilities as well?

World’s First Windows 8 Conference is now being Broadcast Live Globally!

You asked we listened.  No Travel, No Airfare and No Hotel.  There are only 500 virtual seats so act fast.  Get 2 full days of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 insight for only $99.00.

I will be at MVP Nation 2012 presenting on a panel about Windows 8 tablets on Saturday. No matter where you are in the world, you can attend the MVP Nation conference and get all of the valuable information and insight on the upcoming Windows 8 for a mere $99.

That’s a tough deal to beat–especially as far as conference registration and attendance is usually concerned.

The post addresses four major trends: BYOD (bring your own device), mobility, social media, and new technology. The “answer” laid out in most cases is to upgrade to current technology running Windows 7. I think I would disagree at this point.

Windows 8 is too close in my opinion, and there are too many question marks out there regarding what types of devices we will see. I would not go out today and buy a notebook running Windows 7 because I’d be afraid that I’d be kicking myself before the end of the year when I see what kinds of cool hardware is launched running Windows 8.

I agree with the premise of the underlying trends. I just think that right now it is better to remain in a holding pattern as long as your current technology is at least getting the job done. Wait and see what’s available at the end of the year, and then choose which platforms and technologies to invest in.

The one bit of advice in the Microsoft blog post that is not dependent on technology, though, is one you can jump on now. Microsoft suggests that businesses–no matter how small–invest the time to understand social media and develop an effective strategy for engaging customers and using social networks as a marketing and customer relationship tool.

Take a look at this series of articles, and chime in on the comments here to argue your case for which one you think is “best”.

• 5 Ways Laptops Are Better than Tablets or Smartphones
• 5 Ways Tablets Are Better than Laptops or Smartphones
• 5 Ways Smartphones Are Better Than Laptops or Tablets

That said, when tablets start hitting the street with these quad-core Tegra chips from Nvidia, it could be a bit of a game changer. The video that Nvidia released to demonstrate the power of the quad-core Tegra focuses on a game with a rolling ball and lighting effects. The point, though, isn’t necessarily to demonstrate the ball-rolling game, but to illustrate that if the chip can smoothly render a demanding game like that, imagine what it can do with regular old Web surfing, or email.

Microsoft is expected to demonstrate the tablet version of Windows 8 this week. I know I wouldn’t mind seeing how Windows 8 runs on a tablet armed with one of these processors.