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Microsoft Surface Estimated to Have Sold Only 1.7 Million Units Since Launch
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Weird Device with Potential
I love the idea and concept of Surface, but I think the execution is a bit lacking. It is great if you want to do everything in landscape mode, but the minute you want to read a book or something then it's weird shape becomes "unusable." Also it needs to have built in cellular and be thinner. With that said, I've noticed more and more people using it.
At comic con and other conferences I've noticed a more folks with them using it for you know - real work. One woman was recording video and typing notes at the same time - I was so jealous! I can't get any real work done on my "iPad."
I love the idea and concept of Surface, but I think the execution is a bit lacking. It is great if you want to do everything in landscape mode, but the minute you want to read a book or something then it's weird shape becomes "unusable." Also it needs to have built in cellular and be thinner. With that said, I've noticed more and more people using it.
At comic con and other conferences I've noticed a more folks with them using it for you know - real work. One woman was recording video and typing notes at the same time - I was so jealous! I can't get any real work done on my "iPad."
It does not help that Microsoft is lazy as hell.
I'm on my iPad now. It runs great, and is very touch friendly. At no point do I want to be thrown into "desktop" mode and deal with a gimped OSX.
Trying to sell a stripped down version of Windows and call it a mobile solution is trifling as all hell, and is just...lazy. And it doesn't run all that well on ARM chips that I've seen.
But as I've been saying for months, Microsoft shouldn't have scaled Windows 8 down. Rather they should have scaled Windows Phone up to a tablet version for the Surface and had a unified mobile architecture which is easier for consumers and developers to deal with.
That leaves only the problem of the name Windows Phone which is idiotic as all hell. Learn from Apple which didn't use the term iOS till 2010. Don't limit your mobile OS solution by calling it "phone" anything.
IMO, surface pro is still a very niche product. I can't see too many people really caring that much about a fully-capable tablet windows machine. It's good for the productivity people who need those programs on the go all the time. The rest of the consumers looking for tablets tho, are perfectly satisfied with what an ipad is capable of.
This is a common misconception. Companies are actually driven to do their best by a financial incentive that is driven by consumer demand, not competition. Companies care about profit; the number and status of competitors they face is only important as a consideration of how feasible it is to achieve the greatest profit possible. If the market were to stop buying the product and demand something better, it would have the same impact on the company as if a groundbreaking new product made the company's product obsolete and everyone stopped buying it. Similarly, if competing were to become unprofitable, a company will often look for new opportunities that are profitable.
Competition DOES benefit the consumer, and is necessary for a capitalist economy to function. The act of competition necessitates that businesses work quickly and efficiently to earn the consumers' business, which is required because consumer demand cannot regulate a monopolistic economy. Just understand that the motivation itself is the black ink at the end of the quarterly report.
Most people who want a tablet are eyeing the iPad or they already have one. I don't doubt that the surface is a great product but it'd have to be a far superior product to make people consider it over an ipad. I think this is a case where Microsoft is too late to the game.
True. Though if they had gone a purely x86 route, they wouldn't have been able to compete... At least at the time... with the iPad in terms of size, weight, and battery life, and would have also eliminated a major incentive to develop for the modern interface. Unfortunately I think, by dragging their feet so long, Microsoft has gotten themselves into a bit of a catch-22.
That's not entirely true, they could have competed with a full windows solution AND matched the ipads stats, weight, battery life, thinness, price, etc. They should have thrown their weight behind Atom tablets, or better yet created their own hardware surface version with an atom processor. Out of all the bad decisions and strategies they made IMO this is the absolute worst one.
The iPad didn't become a massive success because it runs software from 1999 and macros in Excel.
I believe it's a success in part because it does not try and do those things.
Legacy is an albatross, not a force multiplier. If that were not true the iPad, and other lite computing devices would not be gutting the traditional PC market. It's a flat out rejection of legacy and the computing model birthed with Windows 95.
I agree. This is why the iPad is great. Versatility. If you're a writer who needs to pump out a lot pages. Buy a keyboard and away you go. If not. Keep it in its standard form.
Also agree that it's just going to get more powerful and versatile without the need of putting a major full on desktop OS on the unit.
The point I was making about MS was they keep thinking is that all people want is a keyboard. They believe they majority of people just want to go back to laptops. But it's not true. MS just want to bet everyone back to the OS is king scenario and the OS should be windows.
I think iPad has already gone head to head with laptops and is winning. The 57m per year sales is coming from somewhere and it's not all newbie tech buyers.
Laptop/pc sales are dropping significantly. Those who may have bought a laptop identify the iPad (tablet) as a much better option per function and price wise.
I can agree with this. If MS played their cards right, they could've and would've had a better chance of carving out their own tablet niche. A touch centric Metro Office would've been a great foot in the door, and shown developers just how good WinRT would be for their own apps.
But...no. Office wasn't ready enough enough time, so they just squeezed what they had onto the RT by enabling desktop on the thing and porting over what they had. And MS' own Metro apps were pretty lackluster compared to their desktop and web counterparts.
And then there was the screen. Sure, it was quality. It was a nice, crystal clear IPS screen with great color gamut. MS didn't skimp here. But it's also a 1366x768 screen coming out when just about everyone has come to expect high density displays as the standard on tablets at that price range.
On top of that, no one could buy the thing easily. After all this time, I've only seen the RT for sale at a couple of Best Buys around me. In comparison, I can pick up an iPad at just about any place that carries electronics.
The RT is a great idea in a lot of ways. The Surface Pro doubly so. But the whole line is a bunch of great ideas hobbled by half ass implementations.
Microsoft will do what they did with the Xbox. They will make a huge financial loss on the 1st generation of their Tablet but they will keep selling it at a discounted rate.
People over time will buy this heavily discounted version. They will be intrigued and may even dabble in a cheap Windows Phone first before buying the Tablet. This will especially happen with people that are no longer interested in Android or iOS devices.
Microsoft will release their next model to an already small but established market with some of the changes people would of liked in the first model.
Personally I would of preferred Microsoft to take a leaf out of Apple's book and made a new OS for their Phone and Tablet systems. Don't base the new OS off Windows at all.
People over time will buy this heavily discounted version. They will be intrigued and may even dabble in a cheap Windows Phone first before buying the Tablet. This will especially happen with people that are no longer interested in Android or iOS devices.
Microsoft will release their next model to an already small but established market with some of the changes people would of liked in the first model.
Personally I would of preferred Microsoft to take a leaf out of Apple's book and made a new OS for their Phone and Tablet systems. Don't base the new OS off Windows at all.
I hear Windows and my brain half checks out.
Imagine if Xbox was called "Windows Game Console"...yeah that would sell...
Lazy? I'd think that moving 90% of Office within 2 or 3 years is something that a lot of companies wish they would be able to do. Notice how Office on the Surface RT his much more feature-complete than Pages is on the iPad. Also, what would you rather they call it.... Windows Mobile?
As for it not running well, I don't know what you're talking about. Initially maybe, but they've been working a lot on firmware for the Surface RT. It actually runs fairly well. Widows RT is touch friendly with everything that is not Office... especially with 8.1, which I would have liked to have been the thing that they released to begin with.
The sad thing is, it's not that bad of a product. The execution is poor, and it's aiming at a target market that doesn't really exist.
But wait, it's got that super cool clicking keyboard and that commercial where everyone dances around like functionally retarded robots pretending like their Surface tabs are cooler than school!
How could it go wrong!??!
When will non-Apple companies realize you cannot manufacture something, act like it's cool, and try to convince people it is more so than a similar Apple product?
The best thing MS and everyone else could do would be to actually INNOVATE and come up with the NEXT product everyone will want. Instead, they'll wait for Apple:
Apple will release a smartwatch that actually works and has a "wow" factor. Months later, MS will release a similar watch that has a feature the Apple watch doesn't, tout how "cool" it is, and pay some villagers from Europe to dance around a fire screaming how great it is.
It will get outsold 50 to 1 too.
Move on to something else. The tablet game is over. The reason why other companies are "catching up" to Apple in terms of Tablet sales quarterly is because Apple has already SOLD 50 times more than everyone else, and everyone that wants one already has one (no new sales until something better comes out, from Apple, at which point sales will spike AGAIN).
How could it go wrong!??!
When will non-Apple companies realize you cannot manufacture something, act like it's cool, and try to convince people it is more so than a similar Apple product?
The best thing MS and everyone else could do would be to actually INNOVATE and come up with the NEXT product everyone will want. Instead, they'll wait for Apple:
Apple will release a smartwatch that actually works and has a "wow" factor. Months later, MS will release a similar watch that has a feature the Apple watch doesn't, tout how "cool" it is, and pay some villagers from Europe to dance around a fire screaming how great it is.
It will get outsold 50 to 1 too.
Move on to something else. The tablet game is over. The reason why other companies are "catching up" to Apple in terms of Tablet sales quarterly is because Apple has already SOLD 50 times more than everyone else, and everyone that wants one already has one (no new sales until something better comes out, from Apple, at which point sales will spike AGAIN).
I think the poor sales of the Surface come from a few different problems all at once, and none are really related to the quality of the product itself.
1> The Price point that microsoft believed they were worth was shooting for the moon. They wanted to charge retina ipad prices for a new and emerging product, that on spec sheet was arguably inferior, and an eco system that wasn't really up to snuff.
2> confusion over products: RT and PRO. The average consumer isn't going to know what the difference between these two products were and the OS. Thent hey'd have to learn what the difference really is, and then justify the pricepoint difference. See 1 as then to find out that they'd be effectively buying a tablet with a very small ecosystem for the same price they could get Apples ecosystem. Heck, you can get into competing android tablets for signficantly less than the 499 pricetag microsoft wanted for the surface, that all blew the specs away.
3> negative press and journalism on Window8, that was very unjust and based on a lot of FUD.
4> the ability for the same price to get into other Win8 based tablets that are based on the x86 architecture that did not pose the limitations that the RT had.
1> The Price point that microsoft believed they were worth was shooting for the moon. They wanted to charge retina ipad prices for a new and emerging product, that on spec sheet was arguably inferior, and an eco system that wasn't really up to snuff.
2> confusion over products: RT and PRO. The average consumer isn't going to know what the difference between these two products were and the OS. Thent hey'd have to learn what the difference really is, and then justify the pricepoint difference. See 1 as then to find out that they'd be effectively buying a tablet with a very small ecosystem for the same price they could get Apples ecosystem. Heck, you can get into competing android tablets for signficantly less than the 499 pricetag microsoft wanted for the surface, that all blew the specs away.
3> negative press and journalism on Window8, that was very unjust and based on a lot of FUD.
4> the ability for the same price to get into other Win8 based tablets that are based on the x86 architecture that did not pose the limitations that the RT had.
I would wait for Windows 10. Will it be called Windows 10 or Windows X.
Someone told me "Windows 8 was the bomb".
Well from Microsoft's perspective that would have meant waiting another year or more for Atom processors that could finally approach the efficiency of ARM processors. They must have felt that they couldn't wait any longer. And certainly timing has always been a big factor to consider in all this.
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Well, although the implementation was cheesy, MS is spot on in identifying Apple's demographic and you can't blame them for going after it (again).
Not to come across as condescending but... "Grown ups" use Windows machines - kiddies use Apple devices. Just look around you. iOS is designed mostly for "consumption" and that's enough for the young people until they're forced to go out into the world to earn a living and collaborating with other working adults.
Yes, I'm over generalizing but that's basically the way it is. As much as I wish Apple would make a dent in the enterprise market I can certainly see the value in catering to general consumerism.
And I find all the "smugness" here about Apple's paltry 10% market share in the OS market funny as hell. Plus, this market share would be considerably less if you count all of us that have Windows on our macs.
I didn't say anything about it being nice or not, neither I care to be honest. I didn't say iPad is dominating the market because I know it doesn't matter. It's arguably the best tablet out there, I have one and I would not change it with any other tablet. I used a bit of sarcasm since MS was so keen to compare their surface with iPad. Why not compare the sales too, he?
I'll take that opinion with a pinch of salt given your computing requirements/switch are based on a MP3 player and its ecosystem
In that case, using windows must have been hell!!!!
Wow, if that's what you took from my post you really need to work on your reading comprehension skills.
I have been a power user, system builder, IT support professional/engineer/director on Windows for over 20 years.
My post was not really so much about my personal experience as it is an accurate description of the general result of the iPod/iTunes ecosystem halo effect on computing in the last 10+ years. Once you finish denying that you should use some Q-Tips to remove the sand from your ears...