The company is integrating its Internet Explorer browser and Microsoft Network content into its Windows operating system, a process that will culminate with the "Active Desktop" planned for Windows 97, due out in a few months.
Though Surface is clearly a tablet device, Sinofsky pointed out that the process of developing Windows 8 (on which Surface's Windows RT operating system is based) started in the summer of 2009, when there was no Apple iPad as a reference point (though it remains unclear if Microsoft began working on its tablet at that time).