Microsoft Surface chief: ‘Multiple aspect ratios and sizes’ are in the works
Panos Panay was literally on the floor when I walked into Microsoft's Seattle store last night. — The vice president responsible for the company's Surface tablets was on his back, with a crowd of people around him …
Context & Ripple Effects
Panay's remark came the same week Microsoft opened pre-orders for the Surface 2 ($449 for 32GB) and Surface Pro 2, with shipments set for October 21 — so the 'multiple sizes and aspect ratios' tease functions as forward cover for a launch already underway, not a pivot away from it. For a single executive quote, the pickup was unusually broad: eight outlets including The Verge, BGR and Gizmodo carried the story within a day.
It also landed against an awkward backdrop: after Dell dropped its XPS 10, Microsoft appeared to be the only company still selling a Windows RT tablet, and unconfirmed sourcing pointed to a smaller Surface possibly waiting until Spring 2014. A second form factor would be the obvious answer to the size gap — but on an RT software stack Microsoft now carries essentially alone.
First-order effects
- Buyers deciding between the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 ahead of the October 21 ship date learn the two-size lineup is a floor, not the full plan — Panay confirmed additional sizes and aspect ratios are in development.
- Microsoft's own messaging problem sharpens: it must sell the current generation while signaling that a different-shaped successor is coming, on the same week pre-orders open.
Second-order effects
- OEM partners read the confirmation as evidence Microsoft intends to keep expanding first-party hardware into whichever screen sizes sell, raising the stakes of the channel conflict around every future Surface.
- If the rumored Spring 2014 smaller Surface materializes, it would press directly into iPad-mini-class territory while forcing Microsoft to price it without cannibalizing the Surface 2 — and to defend Windows RT, which no other vendor is still shipping after Dell's exit.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward Surface evolving from a single reference device meant to prove a design point into a multi-form-factor brand competing across size tiers — a structural shift in how Microsoft positions itself against its own PC partners.
- With Microsoft as the last Windows RT seller, any new size tier built on that platform makes Redmond the sole custodian of RT's fate, concentrating both the risk and the decision rights over the OS variant's survival.
The trend: Under Panos Panay, Microsoft's Surface line was beginning its move from one reference tablet toward a multi-size device family, even as the Windows RT platform beneath it narrowed to a single vendor.