Microsoft today announced commercial availability for its Surface lineup in an additional seven markets: Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. This means commercial channel purchases will now be possible in all of the 29 markets where Surface devices are currently sold.
Here’s what that means for business customers:
Our expanded reseller network, brings a variety of additional value-added services to the Surface family, such as asset tagging, custom imaging, knitting, onsite service and support, device recycling and data protection. We already knew that people who use Surface love it. But, perhaps more importantly, business users who use Surface particularly love the ability to buy through the resellers that they’re already working with for their hardware purchases and ongoing support.
Microsoft also made a slew of other Surface announcements today:
- By the end of 2014, Delta Air Lines plans to equip its 11,000 pilots worldwide with Surface 2 devices running Windows RT 8.1, which will provide electronic access to key charts, reference documents and checklists while saving the airline millions of dollars each year in fuel and associated costs.
- New commercial deployments spanning a number of different industries including financial services, education, healthcare, retail/hospitality, and automotive.
- New apps available in the Windows Store that are designed specifically for businesses.
- New participants, including SAP and Omega Group, who have joined the AppsForSurface ISV Program.
We’ve asked Microsoft for clarification on whether these new markets will be getting just the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 or if the previous generation will also be available. We will update this article when we hear back.
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Update: Older models are indeed included in this availability expansion.
See also – Hands on with the Microsoft Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 and Surface 2 launch and Nokia buy: Microsoft is playing the smartphone and tablet long game
Top Image Credit: Timothy A. Clary/Getty
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