Get ready … here comes the big push! Microsoft today announced a new Windows 8 based tablet platform that they are calling “Microsoft Surface” (strange choice of a name, they already had a product with that name and it was literally the size of a table!), and they are boldly claiming that it will rival the almighty iPad. But then again they’d have to say that, otherwise people probably wouldn’t pay much attention!

Details are still somewhat “sketchy” but it appears that there will be two initial models, the “Surface for Windows RT” which uses an NVIDIA ARM processor, and the thicker and heavier “Surface for Windows 8 Pro” tablet which uses an Intel Core i5 (Ivy Bridge) processor and not surprisingly will include a significantly larger battery.

You can find Microsoft information about the new device here, and Engadget have a pretty good write-up that addresses the differences between the two models which you can find here.