Microsoft Surface in Europe is out in the open, and we’re now allowed out and about to talk to people and show them Surface in action. So, the last few weeks have seen us out and about a lot with our Microsoft Surface devices. A lot of communication internally to help our own teams understand the medium, and its unique interaction paradigms; as well as a few trips out to meet real potential customers for Surface applications.
The people we’ve seen are business leaders. Board level decision-makers of FTSE 100 blue chip companies. The reaction they have to Surface is what I wanted to document here.
First, there is an immediate excitement. An excitement like they are witness to something that will change the way we interact with brands forever. One large and very famous company we went to recently, the word spread like wildfire that Microsoft Surface was in town, and board level directors told their entire teams to leave what they were doing to come and see it. When they see a wine glass put on the Surface and the digital reality reacts to it, they are also generally astonished.
Second, there is the sponge phase. They think hard about what they have seen, and try to learn as much about it as possible. They soak up as much information on it as they can. How does it work, what can you do, who is already out there using it. They ask about target sectors, and generally get very quickly what the opportunities are for Surface in Retail, Banking and Hospitality.
Then, in some of these cases, there was an unanswered customer or business need, that when you throw a product like Surface into the mix, you suddenly have the answer to. These are the ones where almost immediately, the customer knows intuitively where Surface fits. Overwhelmingly, the people who fitted in this category worked in Retail, Banking or Hospitality.
The rest are left contemplating the device and how others will develop it, and how it might fit into their business when the ecosystem around Surface evolves.
The interesting thing is that because Microsoft Surface is a completely different usage paradigm. Although of course it is simply a programmable computer, it is most definitely not used to create computer applications of the type that we are used to and it uses a set of hardware and environmental considerations for which there is no existing analogy in most of these industries. In other words, it is not like anything else they do today. So, the decision-making, or making the business case is a different proposition also.
To make the opportunity for Surface work, you have to change things. No retailer I know would deploy say, a video window display if it cost £8,500 per unit just for the hardware alone. However, when retailers looked at the opportunity for EPOS back in the 1980’s, and the huge costs of centralised implementation and then global roll-out, they didn’t get stuck on the fact that they were being asked to switch from the old tills at £500 per store, to a system that would cost them millions. Instead, they saw that they needed to change the way they thought about their point of sale systems, and how their staff interacted with them, and now that way of thinking is very much the norm.
The will required to change things can only come from the very top of the organisation. The decision to change a brand, or a entire store format, are decisions that are only made by the people whose responsibility is the overall success of the business. These are brave decisions made by people who are visionary, and are prepared to make a change from the perceived ‘norm’.
So how is my confidence in the future of Microsoft Surface? In short; very good. I’ve been working with people from the brands that everyone knows and loves, and I’ve been showing Surface to the people with whom the responsibility for success rests – and they’re indicating their will to make these kind of changes.
At Conchango, we’re in the experience design and development business. So we’re engaged in working out what experiences suit Microsoft Surface, for businesses in the UK, US and EMEA.
As a footnote – if you want to see Surface in action in London, or elsewhere in the UK, talk to us.