Today in America, the Surface Pro finally goes on sale and it has a lot of work to do. Although the original Surface was greeted with broadly positive reviews, research from analysts at Canalys found that only three per cent of tablets shipped in the last quarter of 2012 used a Microsoft operating system. Surface was only available for two of the three months in the period, but it was not the only Microsoft tablet on the market and it should have benefitted from the excitement of a new product released in the run-up to Christmas. When Microsoft took over almost every billboard in New York’s Times Square for the launch of a shop dedicated exclusively to selling Surface, three per cent was probably not what they had in mind.