Microsoft Forced to Slash Surface RT Prices Despite Vigorous Anti-iPad Ad Campaign

[cmchsmjm]

Samsung tablets

I recently sold both of my iPads and for the money I got for them on ebay bought two 10.1 Galaxy Tabs and a 7" Tab.

I was getting a bit bored of the iOS interface and felt that Android had done a good job of catching up.

The real deal breaker though was the fact that the Tabs have a micro SD card slot. a couple of Micro SD cards loaded with movies and traveling is a breeze with the kids!!

Most of the apps/games are available too. Not all but certainly enough.
Overall I am really pleased with what Samsung have produced and Android isn't the poor experience I had read about over the years.

I guess it really does come down to what you want out of your tablet, I think a lot of people buy Apple products for the sake of buying Apple products?

 

[Analog Kid]

The Ads aren't enough, people are still confused at the differences between Surface RT and Surface Pro.

Scrap the Surface RT completely, drop the Surface Pro down to 499$ and you might just have a better chance of competing.

Actually, just drop Surface completely, buy Nokia, and let them build MS products.

I almost agreed with that last statement, but when I look at all of Microsoft's hardware products they tend to be well designed. It always seems to be the software that fails them.

The part of the sentiment that appealed to me though is that they need to do something drastic to shake themselves out of their 90's Microsoft mindset.

What keeps killing them over and over again is trying to shoehorn Windows into everything. It seems to me that if they kept Windows strong on the desktop, and clung to the server room as long as they can, and made their applications available on as many mobile devices as possible without trying to compete with their own hardware partners, they'd do better.

I'm sure there's room for another tablet platform, but it won't be running desktop windows. That's been tried over and over, failing each and every time for the same reason: they can't be compatible and lightweight at the same time.

They're slowly learning that Xbox might be the new platform to grow from. Maybe a better answer would be to base Surface on Xbox? Games drove iPhone and iPad to prominence.

 

[cclloyd]

I dunno why "seeing something out in the wild" is such an important metric for popularity. I mean I've only ever seen 3 iPads and a handful of iPhones outside of my house. In fact, I've seen far more Android devices in use than iDevices.

Does that mean they're failures? That people prefer Android because I see them more often? Or is it a flawed metric to judge things by?

I guess it's just what your surrounded by. My previous school had 85% iPhone. My work is about 75% iPhone. My dad is the only one I know with a non iPad tablet.

 

[Neodym]

Who would buy these. They could price them down to $100, but that means devs would be running away from the platform. Consumers would stay away as no good apps would be coming.

If they would lower the price to $100ish, I'd buy one in a heartbeat in addition to my iPad. For such a price i would not care about upcoming software, but rather consider it as a commodity that probably would stay on the current level.

Same motivation that made people buying HP's TouchPad in droves two years ago, when HP pulled out of the tablet market.

 

[baryon]

Not surprising at all. I don't know why they thought this thing would be a success, did they not try it out before releasing it? Anyone could have told them that it won't do well…

 

[HenryDJP]

What does RT stand for?

Really Terrible
Retarded
Real Turd
Rancid Tablet

Take your pic. They all fit.

 

[vigorblade]

It's about Brand Loyalty and staying with what you know and trust

I actually feel for all those people who were responsible for creating and developing this product, you know they are losing a lot of sleep over this embarrassment. That's the thing about products, once you get most consumer's loyalty to your brand, it almost doesn't matter what the other guy brings, if the brand you fell in love with is maintained, you remain married to it (After soooo many years in that relationship, you would rather not start over with a new partner). Plus, you know most of your friends and family use the same brand/product and you enjoy the idea of being able easily share many things related to that brand/product. Listen, I love kellogg's corn flakes and no matter how many flips and cartwheels the competitor's box does in the commercials, when I go to the supermarket guess which brand of corn flakes I always choose ?

 

[donutbagel]

I skimmed the article again, and it's strikingly anti-MS in bias. Sure I don't like MS's stuff in general, but I don't think the article should have an opinion. Maybe it's not supposed to be a bias but is meant to be more attention-grabbing.

----------

Really Terrible
Retarded
Real Turd
Rancid Tablet

Take your pic. They all fit.

ReTarded

----------

If they would lower the price to $100ish, I'd buy one in a heartbeat in addition to my iPad.

If I didn't have a PC already, I'd buy the $100 thing and take whatever steps necessary to use it as a desktop PC. I think the parts alone are worth more than $100.

----------

I guess it really does come down to what you want out of your tablet, I think a lot of people buy Apple products for the sake of buying Apple products?

Maybe it's because not everyone wants an SD card reader on a tablet. I don't have a tablet, but if I was buying one... Android tablets would only be in my consideration pool if they could sync with my PC, which they can't do effectively, and even then, there are other beefs I have with them. I gave up on Windows in 2004. iPad is the easy choice for me, and my case would probably cover the  logo.

 

[parish]

Like if someone fires up Metro Mail and wants to get back to their desktop, they'll find that hitting the windows key toggles you between the start screen and the last used metro app (which the desktop is now considered to be as of Windows 8). What you have to do instead is hit the win key, then hit the desktop tile. It's such a huge change to a long since well established idea, it's no wonder people are confused

Yep, that's exactly what confused the hell out of me with Win8. What's even more confusing is if you are in Explorer in Desktop, double-click on a photo, it opens in the Metro photo viewer. Now, how do you get out of it? There's no 'X' button because there's no window frame. Hitting the Win key takes you to Metro, not back to the Desktop where you started

I think MS have got it seriously wrong with Win8. They've tried to make the PC and tablet versions of the OS identical rather than just intuatively similar. There's a reason why Apple have and, IMO, will continue to keep OS X and iOS separate and that's because the target devices are fundamentally different - I don't think touch-screen computers will ever take off big-time as it's just too uncomfortable using one on a desktop (or even a laptop).

People complain about the iOS-ification of OS X but it isn't forced on people. For example, Launchpad gives an iOS-style interface to OS X so any iPad user getting a Mac for the first time will feel instantly at home - there's even the iOS-style dots at the bottom of the screen to show that there's more than one page and if the user has a Macbook, or an iMAc/Mini/Pro with a Magic Trackpad, they can even navigate it exactly as they would on their iPad.

However, using Launchpad is entirely optional; those of us familiar with OS X just ignore it (and remove it from the Dock) and carry on as before. Now, if MS had added the Metro interface as an app like Lauchpad to the Win7 interface then it would have been a much better way of introducing it. Then, if users started using it in preference to the standard Windows interface (which would probably be driven by app developers) then they could switch it to be the primary interface (like it is in Win8) in Windows 9 or 10

 

[Thunderhawks]

Zune it will be gone!

 

[Technarchy]

I think the Surface is slick but RT makes no sense.

Windows Phone and the ARM based Surfaces should share the same mobile OS platform to simplify development and apps.

The Pro should be windows 8 bases.

I'll take it a step further; Surface should be mobile (tabs and phones) and Windows should be desktop. This way there is no confusion, or messy situations like RT.

 

[springsup]

The iPad is so good that it is extremely hard for them to compite with it. The key reason, IMO, is that carriers had little, if any, traction with tablets (they are not subsidized) and it is a retail game.

This, and the fact that the iPad is cheaper than the iPhone.

The carriers don't like Apple; they pay them less, charge them more, and have a much stronger will than other companies. Apple know this, so they appeal to the carriers' customers directly and force the carriers to deal with them on their terms.

 

[parish]

Plus the win+x menu is a killer way to access all the commonly used underpinnings of the OS from one convenient place.

And that is an excellent example of the failings in UI design that are in Win8.

Despite having used Windows since Win3 I didn't know about Win+X until I read your post. It is so unintuitive as Win+X does nothing in Win7 and earlier so why would anyone automatically assume it would do anything useful in Win8? Sure, I could have Googled and found that Win+X reveals a really useful menu, but it shouldn't be necessary to do so.

 

[foxdougan]

I would actually buy a MS Surface over iPad... I mean, desktop AND tablet functionality in one?!

Except... it's too thick and bulky (compared with a lot of razor-thin tablets these days) and RT meaning a lot of applications aren't compatible with it, which defeats the point of the desktop functionality. The non-RT version is still too expensive.

I hope they iterate and keep at it. MS Surface really could be an iPad killer, they just have several big kinks to iron out first!

 

[FrozenDarkness]

i got to say, i'm utterly amazed at how apple hate has caused people to actually care about stock price. i've been a msft shareholder since 2008, its stock has literally gone nowhere since i bought it. 25-30 region. it's at highs now because the entire market is literally at all time highs. aapl's stock price may be lower than its all time high, it's still higher than when steve jobs' died. so if someone pulls their stock price high, it refelcts on the company when the stock price comes down to earth?

I mean, MSFT's all time high is in its 60s, 5 year high means crap when it's literally still 60% below it's all time highs. what's the point?


Back to the surface RT. Someone mentioned that haswell is supposed to bring us home. Maybe, but i think sales speak louder than words. I'm willing to bet a haswell surface still wont' do well. the reason is because of applications. you're just making too many compromises with a tablet. screen size, lack of durability with a keyboard, lack of touch productivity apps. i go through my entire workday without wishing i can touch the screen. When can the surface pro be your ONLY computer? think about that.

 

[hegor]

Surface tablets suck. Its that simple. Yes, I love Apple stuff, but android stuff looks good too. Apple and Android are just superior.

 

[Analog Kid]

I would actually buy a MS Surface over iPad... I mean, desktop AND tablet functionality in one?!

Except... it's too thick and bulky (compared with a lot of razor-thin tablets these days) and RT meaning a lot of applications aren't compatible with it, which defeats the point of the desktop functionality. The non-RT version is still too expensive.

I hope they iterate and keep at it. MS Surface really could be an iPad killer, they just have several big kinks to iron out first!

This has been their problem all along. You simply can't maintain full compatibility between modern desktop hardware and current tablet hardware, but MS thinks that Windows is their advantage so they keep at it.

Sure, a tablet today has as much power as a desktop 10 years ago, but MS won't settle for Windows 2000, they want Windows 8. So they compromise the utility of the tablet to cram Windows 8 into it, but not so much that they can run Windows 8 at full steam so it's not really like having a desktop in a tablet, and you get this hybrid mess that doesn't serve any real market.

 

[pmcdunnough]

It is still too expensive. The resolution is not great and working in portrait mode is not optimal because of the aspect ratio. It's well made but just not all that appealing. The Surface Pro attracts people who want their legacy software to work but it has a short battery life and again there is that 16:9 aspect ratio which really means you will be working in landscape mode most of the time.

I hope Microsoft gets it right. They seemed to be on the right track but something is wrong. Not sure what it is. Meanwhile people have gotten use to IOS and Android and have come to realize that the future does not have to be built with Office.

Philip

 

[ItsWelshy]

I won’t be buying one ever..

I just don't see how Microsoft go about designing and creating products, it’s as if they have no idea on what the market want.

For me personally, It’s likely that I’ll ever buy a Microsoft product as I use OSX, which is lightyears ahead of Windows, and I will always chose the less frustrating user experience, and the easiest and more free flowing user experience, I feel so frustrated using Microsoft software and products.

Was recently given a Sony Viao for work, that was a decent machine, but came with Windows 8, and whilst I think Metro was a decent idea for tablets and phones, it’s awful on a full PC, scrolling up and down to go left and right, no start button, no ease of use, frustratingly complicated, no decent file or application views. – I don’t use it now, it’s back in the box.

As I said, they take a really good idea (Metro for tablets and phones) and make it shockingly difficult and frustrating.

They seem to want to make products that only devs and IT techs want to use, they forget that the mass market want the products to work for them.

 

[calvol]

So M$ missed the browser, social media, mobile phone, and music wars, and now late to the the tablet war with a POS(urface).

M$'s only competitive advantage now is Office.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

i will again make the argument that the future is making the current crop of tablet OSes better instead of making desktop more touch friendly. You can already see the future, hospitals making tablet optimized apps are a good example. you need a good medium between offloading power requirements to some remote server farm somewhere while keeping everything nice and easy to use on a tablet. taht's why people enjoy using tablets. simple apps made with touch in mind.

i just can't get over how many people get excited about being able to touch their screens without really realizing why they do so. do you really enjoy scrolling down a webpage with your fingers more than a mouse? Think functionality here too. MSFT is already very behind on apps and with its high price and low support, companies will continue to make tablet optimized apps for the ipad and android environmen.

 

[calvol]

So M$ missed the browser, social media, mobile phone, and music wars, and now late to the the tablet war with a POS(urface).

M$'s only competitive advantage now is Office.

 

[harrisondavies]

I'm not going to write a mid-term paper on an iPad, nor can the iPad handle programs like Visual Studio or Civilization..

Why not? I've written two novels and a university thesis on an iPad. Don't underestimate the power of an iPad.

The iPad is a powerful machine. Here's an example:

http://youtu.be/D5Dy8ZXg5V8

It just needs developers to really create.

 

[Zendokan]

http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/nokia-windows-8-tablet.jpg

If Microsoft is smart, it would make a deal with Nokia tp produce the
"Nokia Lumia Surface" with only 1 version of Windows 8 on it.
Still wouldn't braek open the tablet marked, but would sell more than 1,5 million.

I like the compatition of Windows, Android and Apple tablets, mini tablets and smartphones. It keeps the innovation/evolution/revolution going and that's something were every consumer benefits from.

Let's see how this will pan out in the future.

hell, the Nokia Lumia series has a great design, they could even pull of a "Nokia Lumia Zune" that would be a small contender in the iPod marked.

 

[gnurf]

I almost agreed with that last statement, but when I look at all of Microsoft's hardware products they tend to be well designed. It always seems to be the software that fails them.

The (allegedly) over 30% failure rate of Xbox 360 wasn't a software issue