So I’ve got an admission to make: I’m one of those forty-something digital joy riders that dutifully joined the priority list to have the honour of purchasing an iPad. Twice. First time around, when my number came out the hat, I was out of the country and even though I asked them nicely not to, Apple decided that the fairest thing to do was to give my iPad to the next person on the list. Second time up, I was there double early to collect.

I’m in danger here of overstating my love affair with Apple. I don’t have an iPhone, and I don’t drive a Mac Book. I was a corporate Apple user in the late eighties, but can remember a period in the mid nineties when every new Apple product was a dog; and an expensive one, at that. I came to iPad via an iPod touch; a great experience, made bigger and better.

So, two months in, how do things stand? What I’ve found is that when I want to view my calendar, check mail (even in the office), mess about with social media or browse a web site, I go to the iPad. If I’m working out of the office, then I’ll also view and edit docs and create mind maps straight off the iPad. I’m getting more confident of running presentations from it too , though you need to rehearse any content you import from PowerPoint. There are very few times, when I’m working at a laptop, that I don’t have the iPad along side, keeping web content visible, or displaying supporting docs.

In short, it’s become the device I turn to first, whether for work or leisure. It’s become a device of ‘first resort’. Also, more and more of my content is being stored in the cloud, by Dropbox and what have you, because it’s way, way more convenient to work that way when you’re hopping between devices. So the cloud is becoming, at the very least, a storage option of first resort.

It’s interesting to reflect where that leaves Microsoft. It’s comforting to know that if I have any digital ‘heavy lifting’ to do, then Windows and Office is there for me. Likewise, the office server holds a vast amount of info, reasonably cheaply. But if my experience can in anyway be generalised, and if tablets, smart phones and cloud storage are becoming the first resort of us prosumers, then that makes Microsoft’s offering more of a ‘last resort’ for many. Back stop is never a totally bad space to occupy, but I bet it doesn’t gel with the ambitions of Mr Balmer and co.