Seems like someone at Microsoft messed up and released the price for the RT a bit too early.
499 USD for the 32GB model without the touch cover.
599 USD for the 32GB model with the touch cover.
699 USD for the 64GB model with the touch cover.
At that price I think Microsoft will have a tough time selling that many Surface RTs, and I would not call these prices "competitive". It costs as much as the iPad, which in my opinion has a pretty big Apple tax (does have a really nice screen though). It is worth noting that you only get the 16GB iPad model for 499 though. So you could say the Surface is 100 dollars cheaper than the iPad when you compare them with the same capacity.
Anyway, at that price I think the Pro model is much more attractive, which should cost about 900 dollars for the 64GB model in order to be "competitive" vs Ultrabooks. The Pro model will have a far better screen, much more powerful processor and GPU, a very nice stylus with palm blocking, and a few other nice things over the RT model.
Source: Microsoft Store
Here is an image of the whole page:
