What OEMs desperately need to learn from Microsoft's Surface

This week, Microsoft crossed a line it has maintained for three decades. With its new Surface PCs for Windows 8, it will compete directly with the OEMs who license Windows. Why now? Because those OEMs desperately need a challenge.

Microsoft is not throwing its OEM partners under the bus. It is pushing them out of the way of an onrushing freight train.

See what I did there? I substituted one violent transportation-based metaphor for another. That was deliberate. So was Microsoft’s unprecedented decision to cross a line it has maintained for three decades.

Microsoft's Surface tablet vs. the iPad: Seven challenges

Microsoft came out with all guns blazing yesterday with its Surface tablets. Or did it?
The perceived success or failure of what was shown is obviously subjective, and comes down to whether or not you believe in what Microsoft is showing. Moreover, can Microsoft's strategy with the Surface -- and all Windows 8 tablets, for that matter -- succeed in not just being a No. 2 to the iPad, but in being a true iPad rival?
As a user of both the iPad and previous Windows tablets, I think it comes down to these key points.