It seems that Acer (2353) president Jim Wong can’t decide whether to praise Microsoft (MSFT) or to bury it. Just days after Wong defended Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system, he told AllThingsD that the company has done a poor job of marketing both the platform and its signature Surface tablet. In particular, Wong thinks that Microsoft has vastly overplayed the Surface’s click-in keyboard at the expense of showing off its touch interface features.
“The promotion of the product is really focused on the keyboard, and the users really don’t know how to maximize the touch experience,” Wong told AllThingsD.
And Wong isn’t the only Acer executive to criticize Microsoft’s marketing strategy, as Acer chief marketing office Michael Birkin dinged Microsoft for the multiple brand names it gave its new operating systems and claimed that there was simply too much messaging that came out between the Surface, Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Phone 8.
Despite his stance, Wong is still bullish on Windows 8 as a whole and he has praised it in the past for smartly integrating touch capabilities with traditional PC functionality.
“It was disappointing, but we have to work closely with Microsoft to get customer feedback on what works and what doesn’t,” Wong explained.
