Microsoft Will Expand Distribution of Surface Tablet Microsoft said Tuesday that it planned to expand sales of its Surface tablet beyond Microsoft-owned retail stores. The move ends one of the more puzzling limitations to the company's strategy for Surface, which is meant to compete with the iPad. If Microsoft wants to be a serious contestant in the tablet market, analysts believe it needs to make it easy for the public to walk into a store to play around with a Surface. And there simply aren't enough Microsoft retail stores (64 listed on its own Web site, including 34 holiday-only stores) to do the trick. Microsoft said Surface would be in other retailers' stores as early as mid-December, though it did not identify which ones would carry the product. In a separate announcement, Staples, the office supply store, said it would begin selling Surface on Wednesday. The company did not reveal any sales figures for Surface, and some early studies have suggested Microsoft hasn't sold many of the devices. In a statement, Panos Panay, general manager for the product, said that the "public reaction to Surface has been exciting to see." The company said it had increased Surface production and that all of its holiday stores would remain open after the new year, with some eventually turning into permanent Microsoft stores.