Cloud-focused Microsoft keeps its feet on the ground with evolving Surface hardware line

In an October 2013 file image, Panos Panay, corporate vice president at Microsoft, at the Microsoft store in the Westfield Century City mall in Los Angeles. (Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

In the dim light of a New York event space, a video announcing the newest version of the Microsoft Surface laptop was playing loudly, projected on a huge screen to a crowd of analysts and media. 

Surface chief Panos Panay was hardly paying attention, instead roaming through the audience, inspecting the various Surface devices being used by scattered audience members.