Microsoft can’t catch a break. Everyone keeps stepping on the company’s news cycles. First, the Surface tablet finally got pricing and availability details Wednesday. Magically, Apple announced its iPad Mini event the same day, absorbing enormous amounts of the press coverage Microsoft wanted for the official launch of Windows 8. Rumor has it, pre-orders for the iPad Mini will begin on October 26, the same day Windows 8 PCs like the Surface go on sale. Now, Google has announced an event for October 29, where it will likely display Android updates and the latest Nexus device (or devices, if you trust some of the rumors). It’s a highly-anticipated annual event in the mobile world, and one that just happens to have stepped all over the day of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 announcement.
Microsoft has a lot at stake in the launch of its new generation of operating systems. The tech giant has lost a lot of ground in the last few years, not so much to direct competition in its core PC market, but rather in mobile devices that rapidly outgrow and outsell PCs. Successful launches for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 could put Microsoft back in the competition and give it a chance to drive innovation once more.
Apple and Google, on the other hand, have managed to dominate the new landscape and have every reason to get in the way of Microsoft’s big days. So far, it looks like this giant little underdog makes the best it can out of the timing. Fortunately for Microsoft, the company doesn’t seem to need much help, because the base $499 model of the Surface sold out in less than a day.
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