NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- When it unveiled its Surface tablet, Microsoft pulled off something increasingly rare in the tech world: a true surprise.
Even notoriously tight-lipped Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) can no longer keep details of its iGizmos from reaching the public ahead of the company's carefully crafted launch events.
Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500)knew that if Surface details leaked out, the consequences could be disastrous. For the first time ever, it planned to bypass its PC manufacturing partners and directly compete with them. Also, Microsoft was extremely late to the tablet game. Tipping off rivals like Apple could have set Microsoft back even further.
That's why the company went to extreme -- sometimes painful and often hilariously excessive -- lengths to keep Surface a secret.
The development team worked in a secured building dubbed "The Vault." When choosing a name for the team -- a Microsoft custom -- the group picked "WDS," an acronym that stood for absolutely nothing. It was the winner of a contest held to pick the most obscure, nonsensical name -- one that could never be linked back to Surface.
"When people heard about the WDS team, everyone said, 'Tell us what it means!'" says Panos Panay, Microsoft's hardware chief. "I would say, 'exactly.' No one knew what we were working on.".........http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/28/technology/mobile/microsoft-surface/index.html?iid=HP_LN
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