Surface Pro Tablet Price: Expensive at $899? Perhaps Not

At first glance the Microsoft Surface tablet running Windows 8 Pro looks expensive: A 64 GB version will cost $899 and the 128 GB version will be $999. (Microsoft — NASDAQ: MSFT — announced pricing yesterday.) Critics may say you can buy a full-blown PC or laptop at that price. But that’s exactly the point: Surface Pro is a full-blown computer that doubles as a tablet. And The VAR Guy remains intrigued.

First, a confession: The VAR Guy wishes Microsoft had a Windows 8 Pro tablet that was more in the $599 to $699 price range. The current Windows RT Surface tablet, starting at $499, simply sounds too limited for The VAR Guy. Microsoft is offering this side-by-side comparison of Surface RT and Surface Pro to help potential buyers choose between the tablets.

But here’s the thing: The VAR Guy is starting to think of Surface Pro and rival Windows 8 tablets as full-blown PCs/notebooks. So maybe that $899 price for Surface Pro is reasonable.

Either way, the wait is on for Surface Pro — which is expected to debut in January 2013 or so.

The bigger question for VARs involves business opportunities. So far Microsoft hasn’t said much about a Surface channel strategy. Surely, there’s an opportunity to optimize health care, financial services and other types of vertical market applications for Windows 8 tablets.

That’s a message Microsoft needs to start delivering — really soon.