WHEN MICROSOFT ANNOUNCED its latest Surface tablet yesterday, it was expected that it would also be revealing a 8-inch Surface mini as well.

That didn’t happen in the end and while Microsoft had been working on a smaller tablet for the past year, its announcement was postponed at the last minute.

According to Bloomberg, both Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella and Executive Vice President Stephen Elop decided the product wasn’t different enough from rival products and wouldn’t be successful.

The company had been working with Qualcomm on the project until recently, when Nadell and Elop decided not to go ahead with it.

Microsoft is still working on smaller versions, which Surface Head Panos Panay said in an interview after the event. However, there are no details about whether it will be released or not.

At the Surface press event in New York yesterday, Nadella said it wanted to turn Microsoft into a “mobile first, cloud first” company, saying he wants people to “dream and get stuff done.”

Microsoft descibed its Surface Pro 3 yesterday as “the tablet that will replace your laptop.” The 12-inch tablet is available for pre-order online but won’t arrive in Ireland until the end of August.

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