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Microsoft Forced to Slash Surface RT Prices Despite Vigorous Anti-iPad Ad Campaign
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Apple is doing just fine. Also it's been 3 years and android still can't get a proper tablet out. The samsung galaxy tabs and notes are the only good offers, but even then android doesn't push proper tablet apps.
Well, that's in eye of the beholder. I heard many positive reactions among friends using Android apps and Android is already Nr 1 in the market when you look at market share.
So people can keep shouting: "bleh" but marketshare of Apple is declining and that of Android is going up. That's the reality of today and most probably in the coming years.
At Microsoft's TechEd conference in New Orleans, they sold RTs with a touch cover for $99. Pros were $399. There were 3 hour line ups, maybe that's the price point they need to hit.
I sold my iPad 3 while it still had some value in anticipation of the next iPad model, and in the meantime I've been using the RT. I'm way more productive on it than the iPad, especially with Windows 8.1 and Outlook. However I do miss the iPad's form factor, some of the apps and iBooks. When I get whatever the new iPad is, I'll probably still use the RT as my productive device, and the iPad as my leisure device.
I sold my iPad 3 while it still had some value in anticipation of the next iPad model, and in the meantime I've been using the RT. I'm way more productive on it than the iPad, especially with Windows 8.1 and Outlook. However I do miss the iPad's form factor, some of the apps and iBooks. When I get whatever the new iPad is, I'll probably still use the RT as my productive device, and the iPad as my leisure device.
Taking a loss just makes your product CHEAP not good. That's why Apple went for the EXPENSIVE larger tablet space first...now they control the BAR everybody else is measured by.
Microsoft fundamentally is prohibited from making a good tablet by its protection of MS Office and other "office stuff". Fundamentally they have not CHANGED their GUI guidelines since XP Tablet from 2002. Metro was a start, but just another in a long line of incompatible direction changes.. Win mobile, win phone, kin, Zune, Xbox... Every new device throw away the old programs and make new ones... I don't think in 10 years of MS "mobile" devices I've seen any company with SUPPORTED windows mobile/phone/CE apps being developed in-house. It was just wasting time compared to good ol' VB6 on a PC.
The iPad is great for web consumption and leisure usage but the Surface is what is required to get real productive work done.
The price drop may help more people now to choose the Surface over the iPad & iPad minime.
To do certain things on the iPad such as a trival thing as watching flash content, sending file attachments on email or using a scrollbar on some webpages, you need an app.
They should call them workaround patches instead of apps.
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I still say the biggest strength for the iPad is the 4x3 aspect. 16x9 in a tablet is just awkward and uncomfortable to hold. I wanted a windows tablet bad, but every one I looked at was long and skinny and unbalanced which made it terrible to hold for any length of time.
Yeah the build quality on the Surfaces is actually pretty incredible. MS is not as lousy at developing hardware as people think they are. They're just lousy at marketing the hardware.
I understand why MS wanted to build a tablet/desktop ecosystem on ARM but their execution has been pretty bad. Every ARM tablet that competed against the iPad at the same pricepoint has failed because of ecosystem and branding problems. RT is going the same route.
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Microsoft doesn't monetize like Apple does. For Apple, success = hardware sales volume. For Microsoft, selling too much hardware screws over their OEM's. OS penetration matters more to them
Exactly.
The market has nothing to do with reality.
It's mostly emotion.
Dollars in the bank *IS* something you can control.
Analysts rumors and FUD is not something a CEO can directly affect.
How were these rendered useless? They were PowerPC computers that were supported long into OSX until PowerPC based chips were eventually dropped. They had normal lifecycles. The PowerMac G5, in particular, had plenty of revisions. The Cube was a one shot.
Except the iPad was priced less than everything else on the market when it was first released. That was part of the shock of the iPad. It was both better designed than any other tablet on the market and priced more cheaply.
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Ew, not Chrome. I used to like Google's services in general, but they've gotten really bad pretty recently. Try using YouTube and linking a Google+ account or using Google+ by itself. It's as if each programmer and designer went his own way on part of the site without consulting others.
I expected MS to lose their hold when Vista came out. Unbelievable that people stuck with it. I'd rather use Windows 98 with flash drive compatibility.
This is so obviously an MS shill. You sold your iPad 3 because... what... you were anticipating the next iPad model? Seriously? That's the best cover story you could come up with? When has there even been a hint of a new iPad model?
And then there's that MS code word, "productive." Oh yes, you're more productive. What does that mean, exactly? (Don't answer, we all know it means editing spreadsheets. Cuz that's all anyone really wants to do. Edit spreadsheets.)
Does it mean that you're stupid enough to think we will swallow that ridiculous marketing line that the ideal way to edit spreadsheets is on a 10" touchscreen. And that we need the ability to edit spreadsheets all the time? And that your Surface, which you claim to have bought a while ago, came with Windows 8.1? Jeez.
I hope MS revokes your pay for this post. It was entirely lame.
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Wacom will probably put a bunch of hot keys around the bezel of the devices, as they do it's their higher end drawing tablets.
People like being able to run all their existing software. Backwards compatibility has always been the strength of Windows... Until RT came along.
Apple's market share in the mobile phone market has not declined. Android has taken market share from everyone else, like Nokia and Blackberry.
As far as tablets go, well, if the iPad had 100% of the market share (since it was the only game in town) then if even one table by another manufacturer was sold the iPad has lost market share. But Apple still has a strong lead. I know people - I know this is anecdotal but I don't think it's uncommon - who see a tablet advertised at Wal-Mart, for example, for $199 and rush to buy it. They don't know what brand it is or what software it runs. They want a tablet. Then they get a crappy tablet and they give it to their kids, or a friend, or throw it in the kitchen drawer.
Are you from an alternate timeline? The Bill Gates in this one is hardly charitable.
+10
Couldn't agree with you more. I own a Retina Display MBP, iPad Mini and iPhone 5 but I am impressed with what MS has done with Windows 8 and these devices. I currently have Win 8 installed under Bootcamp and I find it rather refreshing. It's different. Love the live tiles. Innovative.
So the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation doesn't exist on your plane of existence? He didn't sign the The Giving Pledge?
>_>
I think you've summed it up very well there
MS really needs to take a long, hard look at itself, the devices it wants to target, and where things are heading in the "post-PC" era and think outside of the box.
They are making a mistake in trying to shoe-horn their two flagship products - Windows and Office - onto any device that comes along and it quite clearly isn't working.
If Apple had tried to shoe-horn OS X onto iDevices they would not be the rip-roaring success they have been.
Ballmer acts like an idiot a lot and his 2 biggest failures are huge - Microsoft brand erosion and losing mobile. But looking at what he's been doing, he does have a plan and it makes sense
His recent reorg got rid of silo-ing, which should fix brand erosion years from now. This is probably the most important thing he's done.
They're dealing with the shrinking PC market by porting to the cloud and trying to disrupt the tablet market. MS's cloud infrastructure was built under his watch and is second only to Amazon's. On the tablet end, they're the only company trying to port x86 to the tablet market (in doing that they basically port the PC market to the tablet sector and fix that shrinking PC market problem in one move). They have branding problems right now but if they can fix it, they'll have real disruption
They're also taking a page from Apple and trying to create a cohesive ecosystem. Love it or hate it, they stuck the Metro interface on everything and are evolving the livetile UI to make it more useful. They stuck a W8 kernel on the new XB1. Every single piece of new hardware they put out is Skype equipped. Free skydrive space is being given out with everything. This is something that's being ignored right now but they're slowly turning all their assets into a single juggernaut
All of these moves are bold moves hedging on disruption and leveraging current assets. The only other big move I can think of for him to do is blow up his marketing team, which has consistently been one big fail
I was at the MS Store a couple of days ago and Acer and some other manufacturer had Atom-Based Tablets running REAL Windows 8 for $399.
Not RT, so you can load many Windows programs on it (iTunes!). Not bad for an Atom - they seem to be very responsive and play 720p videos. But didn't make the $499 tablets running RT look very desirable, unless you are happy with the RT apps out there.
Not RT, so you can load many Windows programs on it (iTunes!). Not bad for an Atom - they seem to be very responsive and play 720p videos. But didn't make the $499 tablets running RT look very desirable, unless you are happy with the RT apps out there.
All the hallmark of play book. Great os, great tablet, no Eco system. Tablets need not have complexity.
There's a reason why tablets exist, for light duty uncomplicated quick tasks. There's only so much one can do touching a piece of glass. Gestures make some tasks easier, but they need to be intuitive. Windows 8 has shown to be anything but.
There's a reason why tablets exist, for light duty uncomplicated quick tasks. There's only so much one can do touching a piece of glass. Gestures make some tasks easier, but they need to be intuitive. Windows 8 has shown to be anything but.
