微軟Surface Pro3發佈 狂想消滅筆記本電腦大綱
To hear Microsoft's top brass tell it, their 101,914-person, $327 billion company is made up of fanciful dreamers with a mission to empower the masses.
根據微軟（Microsoft）高層的說法，這家擁有101,914名員工、市值3,270億美元的公司由一羣夢想家組成，他們的使命是賦予大衆以力量。
At a press event today to introduce the Surface Pro 3 tablet, chief executive SatyaNadella and Surface Computing head Panos Panay repeatedly spoke of the "dreams" and "empowerment" that can be achieved with the company's new mobile device. The new Surface Pro is sleeker, faster, thinner, and lighter than its previous version, the executives said. It will allow people to perform business tasks such as word processing. And it "will replace the laptop."
在今天的Surface Pro 3平板電腦發佈會上，微軟首席執行官薩提亞o納德拉和Surface部門領導帕諾斯o潘乃反覆提到，利用微軟這款新型移動設備可以實現“夢想”，獲得“力量”。高管們表示，新款的Surface Pro比前兩代產品更加輕薄時尚、運算速度更快。它能夠讓人們完成文字處理這類商務工作，還將“取代筆記本電腦。”
If nothing else, the Surface Pro 3 may be Microsoft's latest attempt in fulfilling its own long-held dream: to be a major player in a tablet market dominated by Apple, Amazon, and Samsung.
Surface Pro 3也許是微軟爲實現自己多年夢想所做的最後一次嘗試，也就是在由蘋果（Apple）、亞馬遜（Amazon）和三星（Samsung）統治的平板電腦市場上成爲強勁的競爭者。
Though the company has long offered "tablet computers," the device's modern incarnation has been a problem for Microsoft (MSFT). Even before Apple (AAPL) introduced the iPad in 2010, pundits predicted that tablets would eventually replace the laptop, just as the laptop had largely replaced the desktop computer. For Microsoft, that spelled trouble: Office and Windows have long been two of the company's most lucrative products. While PCs running Windows still dominate the laptop market, Apple's iOS leads the tablet market. To say that Microsoft is a distant third is an understatement.
儘管微軟長期供應“平板電腦”，但怎樣讓這種設備變得時尚一直是這家公司的老大難問題。甚至在2010年蘋果推出iPad之前，許多專家就預計平板電腦最終會取代筆記本電腦，正如筆記本電腦在很大程度上取代了臺式機一樣。對微軟而言，這是一件麻煩事：多年來，辦公軟件Office和操作系統Windows都是這家公司最賺錢的兩大產品。儘管臺式機使用的Windows仍然統治着筆記本電腦市場，但蘋果的iOS系統卻在平板電腦市場遙遙領先。說微軟是被遠遠拋在後面的老三都已經是有所保留了。（谷歌安卓和蘋果iOS分列前二，這兩大操作系統在平板電腦市場的佔有率達到了97.9%。）
One of the best ways for Microsoft to get its software on tablets would be to make its own. Thus, Surface.
微軟想要讓自己的軟件出現在平板電腦上，最好的辦法之一就是研發自己的產品。因此，Surface應運而生。
To date, Surface hasn't been a success. Microsoft has lost more than $1.2 billion on its tablet business so far, prompting analysts to call it a "money pit." Even with sales doubling year-over-year in the fourth quarter, Surface tablets make up less than 10% of the market, according to industry tracker IDC.
迄今爲止，Surface還不能算得上成功。截至目前，微軟已經在平板電腦業務上虧損了超過12億美元，分析家們把它稱作“資金無底洞”。根據信息技術行業服務提供商IDC的數據，儘管Surface在2013年第四季度的銷量同比翻番，在市場上的佔有率卻仍然不到10%。Today, amid the fluffy talk of dreams and empowerment, Microsoft showed it has at least listened to past criticisms of the Surface.
如今，在對夢想和力量的侃侃而談之中，微軟表現出他們至少聽取了人們過去對於Surface的批評。
The flimsy attachable keyboard made it hard to work on your lap? Microsoft added an extra magnetic attachment to make it more secure.
輕薄的外接鍵盤讓人很難把Surface放在膝蓋上使用？那好，微軟現在增加了一個額外的磁性扣，讓它能放得更穩。
The upright "kickstand" angle made the tablet hard to draw on? Microsoft made it fully flexible. (The crowd applauded at this feature.)
“Kickstand”支架的豎直角度讓Surface用起來很不方便？現在人們可以靈活調整支架的角度了。（人們對這項功能讚不絕口。）
The keyboard's trackpadperformed badly? Microsoft reduced the friction on it.
鍵盤的觸控板效果很差？微軟降低了它的摩擦。
The small 10.6-inch screen made it too small to get real work done? Microsoft expanded the Surface screen to 12 inches, without adding any weight. Microsoft also reduced the device's thickness from 10.6 millimeters to 9.1 millimeters without making it weaker, and demonstrated the feat by dropping a device on a carpeted floor.
10.6英寸的屏幕太小了，真正幹活時很不方便？微軟把新一代Surface屏幕增大到了12英寸，卻沒有增加設備重量，反而還把產品的厚度從10.6毫米減少到9.1毫米，卻無損它強度。爲了證明這點，演示者還把Surface摔在了鋪着毯子的地面上。
And so on. Panay walked the crowd through an hour's worth of feature demonstrations, showing off the Surface's versatile click-pen, automatic cloud synching, andside-by-side computing abilities.
還有許許多多其他功能。潘乃用了足足一個小時向聽衆們展示產品的特性，包括Surface的多用觸控筆、自動雲同步，以及並行計算能力。
With the Surface Pro 3, Microsoft is saying that it is no longer scared of tablets killing laptops. (The market incentives are certainly helping.) In fact, it wants to fire the first shot, and Panay closed the event by proudly declaring that the Surface Pro 3 will be the tablet that will replace the laptop. (It goes on sale tomorrow with a $799 price tag.)
有了Surface Pro 3，微軟表示他們不再害怕平板電腦淘汰筆記本電腦了。（市場的刺激顯然起到了作用。）實際上，微軟自己就想打響淘汰戰的第一槍，在發佈會的最後，潘乃自豪地宣佈：Surface Pro 3將會是取代筆記本電腦的平板電腦。（這款產品將於明天上市，售價799美元。）
His premise is flawed, of course. The laptop doesn't need replacing, at least not yet. Today, the laptop remains a "need-to-have" product; the tablet is a "nice-to-have" product. Analysts are even predicting a peak in tablet sales -- last quarter, unit sales of iPads actually declined.
當然，他的預測還有缺憾。筆記本電腦還不需要被取代，至少目前如此。如今，筆記本電腦仍屬於“必需品”，而平板電腦還是“有更好，沒有也行”的產品。分析家甚至預測平板電腦銷量將會達到峯值——但實際上，在上一季度，iPad的銷量還出現了下滑。
But Panay clearly wants the Surface Pro 3 to change that. In saying so, he inadvertently made the best argument against the dominance of tablets himself: 96% of iPad owners also own a laptop, he noted. "You've been told to buy a tablet, but you know you need a laptop," he said. By declaring war on the laptop, Microsoft is fighting an enemy that might not be there.
不過，潘乃顯然希望Surface Pro 3能夠改變這一點。但他在拋出這個理論時，一不小心提出了對自己“平板電腦統治論”的最好質疑：關於96%的iPad用戶也擁有筆記本電腦這一事實，他表示：“人們都讓你去買平板電腦，但你自己知道，你依然需要筆記本電腦。”微軟在向筆記本電腦宣戰，但與此同時，它面對的也許是一個根本就不存在的敵人。
