Perhaps the idea is to get people wondering what this surface thing is before launching ads with more substance. This guerrilla marketing might lift the Surface coolness factor. Graffiti is cool, right?

Then again, maybe it's Photoshopped.

Dells' founder and CEO thinks Surface tablets pose little threat to his business over the next 10 months. Michael Dell's assessment gives Surface somewhere between 1% and 2% of the entire PC market through the middle of next year, according to the of the company's recent earnings call. "[W]e're ready for Windows 8," he says.

Tim Greene covers Microsoft for Network World and writes the Mostly Microsoft blog. Reach him at tgreene@nww.com and follow him on Twitter @Tim_Greene.