Many companies such as Apple and Google live for drama and surprise. Both have annual conferences, the WWDC for Apple and the I/O for Google, and they both hold the element of surprise highly. Before the grand opening, little is known of what will be on display during the talks. For Apple is year, they released Swift, a new programming language. There wasn’t one person who thought that Apple would definitely release a whole new program, overtaking their old Objectve-C.

SurfacePro3Primary_Print

The Surface Pro 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, after how Apple and Google create so much hype over their companies because of this secrecy, you would think other companies would pick up on the tactic. Well, some have, but certainly not Microsoft. Last month, Microsoft unveiled their new tablet, the Surface Pro 3. Now, there were some rumors that Microsoft would also unveil a Surface Mini, a Surface competitor to Apple’s successful iPad Mini. Come on Microsoft, at least come up with a creative name. Anyway, they didn’t release it, and there were even reports that they were, but they changed their mind 2 days before the conference.

So, big deal, right? We might have been wrong about the whole thing. No Surface Mini after all. Well, not really. In the Surface Pro 3 user manual, some, let’s say, hints were given away. Take this section on the new Surface Pen: “You’ll pair your new pen with Surface Mini a little later during setup.” Ohhhh, someone is getting fired.

There are even more of these gems throughout the manual. In many places, there are very obvious references to a “Surface Mini”. Wether Microsoft actually comes through on their hints, and does release a Surface Mini later on in the year is unknown, or if they will abandon the product to escape the media ridicule. Still, lesson learned, eh, Microsoft?