Dive Brief: 

• In July, Microsoft announced a $900 million write-down of first generation Surface tablet inventory, but that has not deterred the tech firm from aggressively marketing the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2. 
• Microsoft addressed some of the concerns from the original Surface, namely increasing the Surface 2's battery life to be 2 1/2 times that of the first generation. 
• This time around Microsoft plans to appeal to a more well-defined consumer market, and analysts predict it will do well at the enterprise level. 

Dive Insight: 

Microsoft tried to tackle the highly saturated tablet market with the original Surface and suffered a big loss. It seems risky to dive into that pool again, even with better products in the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2. The biggest hurdle Microsoft will face with the new tablets is their still-apparent lack of apps. The new Surface tablets will launch with 10,000 apps (still a far cry from Apple's 375,000 for the iPad), but no Facebook app (it's still in development).