Microsoft Surface Estimated to Have Sold Only 1.7 Million Units Since Launch

[Renzatic]

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.

You're right to an extent. MS has the framework built for an appcentric OS with RT. In fact, I could say that in some ways it's better than iOS. They could break away if they really wanted to, but...

...they haven't. See, MS doesn't have the luxury of being able to start over from scratch and build an entirely new environment like Apple did with the iPad. There's bit of an expectation for all MS products to be backwards compatible with each other. Windows is so ingrained, they can't just pull the trigger and say here you go, something entirely new and awesome, without pissing off whole loads of people.

I think MS realizes they need to do a clean break to get the most out of their mobile new platform. Thing is, they're not willing to commit to it 100% like Apple did, and so we've ended up with this bad hodgepodge we're seeing now.

I like a lot of the things MS is doing, but the implementation leaves much to be desired. And as long as they waffle on the issue, they're going to lose more and more marketshare to Apple, Google, and maybe even Linux.

 

[Cameron Hood]

Good idea, Steve!

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Microsoft filed its annual Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today, revealing that the Microsoft Surface lineup has garnered only $853 million in revenue for the company, which is less than the recent $900 million writedown the company took for the Surface RT.

And as GeekWire notes, it's also less than the "$898 million increase in advertising costs associated primarily with Windows 8 and Surface." The numbers account for all Surfaces sold from the device's original fall launch until the end of Microsoft's fiscal year on June 30.

Image​

While Microsoft did not reveal how many Surface units it sold, GeekWire does estimate that it sold approximately 1.7 million units by the end of June, which roughly corroborates a Bloomberg report in March claiming that Microsoft had sold 1.5 million Surface devices.

As The Loop's Jim Dalrymple points out, Microsoft has sold 1.7 million Surface units in 8 months, which is a far cry from the 3 million iPads Apple sold in 3 days last November, the 14.6 million iPads it sold last quarter and the 57 million iPads Apple sold since the Surface launched.

Late last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told employees at an internal Microsoft town hall meeting that the company had "built more devices than [Microsoft] could sell" in reference to slowing Surface sales. Recently, Microsoft has been trying to sell more devices by aggressively marketing the Surface RT as an iPad competitor with negative ads and was forced to drop the price of its Surface RT prices by $150.

Despite the slow sales of the Surface tablets, Microsoft is said to be pushing forward with plans for a second generation tablet.

Article Link: Microsoft Surface Estimated to Have Sold Only 1.7 Million Units Since Launch

Yeah, build some more! It'll catch on, eventually! Maybe you could launch an ad campaign with you running around sweating and chanting and generally going insane...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8M6S8EKbnU

Failure looks good on em.

Cameron
Still remember Windoze 98

 

[whiteboytrash]

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 wish someone would define "real work".

Is real work the same for everyone?

I wish I knew this "real work" thing that people speak of...

 

[Cameron Hood]

Yeah...

Android phone sales were lackluster in their first year against the iPhone. Android tablet sales were lackluster in their first year against the iPad.

Both are doing just fine today... you can't judge long term viability in an established market by how well a company competes in the first year.

now that they're GIVING them away, they're doing GREAT!

They're junk...copies...

Cheers,
Cameron

 

[GBrooks]

A second gen? Wouldn't you just give up?

 

[whiteboytrash]

You're right to an extent. MS has the framework built for an appcentric OS with RT. In fact, I could say that in some ways it's better than iOS. They could break away if they really wanted to, but...

...they haven't. See, MS doesn't have the luxury of being able to start over from scratch and build an entirely new environment like Apple did with the iPad. There's bit of an expectation for all MS products to be backwards compatible with each other. Windows is so ingrained, they can't just pull the trigger and say here you go, something entirely new and awesome, without pissing off whole loads of people.

I think MS realizes they need to do a clean break to get the most out of their mobile new platform. Thing is, they're not willing to commit to it 100% like Apple did, and so we've ended up with this bad hodgepodge we're seeing now.

I like a lot of the things MS is doing, but the implementation leaves much to be desired. And as long as they waffle on the issue, they're going to lose more and more marketshare to Apple, Google, and maybe even Linux.

Microsoft still turn an amazing profit. They are a big company and have the resource to build great products. But right you are. They are tied to Windows and offering some form of backward compatibility. Their success for the last 20 is based on this alone. Walk into any major corporation. Specifically an investment bank or insurance company. There are literally 1000s of apps running on Windows that need Windows platforms to run. Windows is not going anywhere. MS also won't give up on this cash cow with their products. Business and corporations want MS to make products that tie into their environments.

But where MS is getting killed is the employees, CEOs, MDs, down to office clerk started brining in their iPhones and iPads and wanted their office tools to interact with their mobile platform of choice.

The shift has occurred. I see a lot of Windows based apps which are better run on a mobile device. Fund managers, insurance brokers, legal advisors are better informed by accessing their data on a mobile device rather than returning to the office. Cloud solutions will only enhance this model.

Soon the OS holds little relevance. Data will be king. As it should be. The only question is what device you use to interact with the data.

 

[bobr1952]

As many here have said, being late to the party is not easy to overcome. Be it Android or IOS, once you get used to a product that integrates all aspects of computing from device to device--it is hard to switch to totally different product. A long uphill battle for MS.

 

[LordVic]

A second gen? Wouldn't you just give up?

the 2nd gen Pro could actually be quite promising if they make the move to haswell. If they can jam the Pro level performance and processing into the RT sized device and sell it for the RT value, I think they'd have a winner.

 

[whiteboytrash]

the 2nd gen Pro could actually be quite promising if they make the move to haswell. If they can jam the Pro level performance and processing into the RT sized device and sell it for the RT value, I think they'd have a winner.

So in the meantime just buy an iPad?

 

[j.applewood]

Drop the price of the Surface Pro to $150 and I will consider purchasing one.

*$99

....eh

*$50

 

[PatrickCocoa]

I see now . . .

[snip] I must type out at least 70+ pages per day of what starts out as handwritten notes which are converted to text [snip].

I think the point is that a windows tablet can replace a laptop, where an ipad cannot, at least not anywhere near as efficiently. While there is nothing wrong if you want an ipad AND a laptop, you have to understand that some consumers want a single device. [snip].

I get that, but I don't understand why the single device for your use case is not an ultrabook. If you're doing text input, my perception is that an ultrabook is a better fit than any tablet. For text input considering weight, portability, battery life, screen size, input (keyboard), and durability, the balance tips to an ultrabook.

Am I missing something?

 

[BHP41]

No one ever said "wait for Windows 8" once 7 come out. It's still considered to be one of the best OS releases around. People were only looking forward to Win8 to see what it'd add.

Compared to what??! Vista?? That wasn't such a hard victory now was it.

 

[panzer06]

The math is quite simple, but Microsoft won't accept it.
No x86/x64 Windows* on the MS tablet = no buy.

*to run existing programs

This is a key point. RT is useless without true Windows Application Support. Microsoft should just drop that version.

I never understand this obsession with Office and tablets.

Blackberry and MS keep wanting us to attach keyboards to devices and use Office like its 2001.

Why is the keyboard just so important to their strategy?

Stop attaching keyboards to everything!

The ability to connect a keyboard/mouse/USB hub/battery etc is important in the Windows world. For the casual user an ATOM Tablet can replace a PC or laptop and still get resumes, memos, spreadsheets done alongside media consumption and internet surfing.

I own a surface RT.

Over the past 6 months, I've been giving it to people saying "it is yours if you can find a use for it, no strings attached". ... I still own a surface RT.

Compared to an iPad, it is a crap tablet.

Compared to a Macbook Air, it is a crap notebook.

It DOES suck. It is slow. Clumsy to hold. Subpar 'laptop' at a table. Lacks basic apps. Display isn't great. Doesn't connect to enterprise networks. And the OS is infuriating a lot of the time.

Agree on the RT, however, full Windows 8 Tablets lighter than the iPad do exist and have a place in the market. RT should be allowed to die a quiet death. Of course with RT and Windows 8 phones the Windows App marketplace will continue to struggle.

Umm... These numbers include x86/x64 Windows on the MS tablet.

To me, the real problem is the legacy, non-touch support that discourages the development of tablet optimized apps. We've had more than a decade of Windows tablets with legacy support as evidence that this strategy does not work.

True, but tout this for kids who attend schools that are still dominated by Windows and make it easy to dock and connect to a screen and iot will be the only compute devices they need.

I would get a surface but the price is preventing me from doing so.

For Apple users an iPad was almost exclusively an "extra" device to be added to an existing stable of computing products in the home. There was a cool wow factor and the sense of something new. Microsoft cannot emulate that and should have played to their strengths. There are 10s of millions of people who cannot afford a computer and a tablet on top of that smartphone they have to have. Marketing this as the device to replace that 5 year old computer and it syncs to the cloud with your camera equipped Windows phone and it runs almost all the apps you (sans most games that require GPU power) use and can render most any website you might find on the Internet would have produced far better results.

Offering cross discounts between Windows Tablets and phones for buying both while emphasizing how easily all your music and pictures and website favorites sync across your devices while extolling the backup functionality inherent to this approach would have been a mush better way to spend that $900 in advertising.

"It's Windows, it already does EVERYTHING!" would have been a great slogan.

I wouldn't put much stock in past windows tablets, especially if you have any experience using them. They were awful, thick as a laptop, heavier than a laptop, poor battery life, and much as people say its a negative we didn't have Metro back then. No, windows tablets failed because the hardware wasn't ready yet, and to a lesser extent the software.

Legacy programs are still VERY important to some users, but I agree, they need to be developed away from the old desktop paradigm. I use a lot of programs though which are not being developed on anymore, and I'd be hard pressed to function without them. The sheer amount of legacy programs is staggering. I've always thought Microsoft should streamline the desktop in some kind of way to be backwards compatible with legacy programs, even simple stuff like larger taskbars, menus, etc which maybe could be a UI scaling universal change that old legacy programs would automatically do without any developer changes. The desktop is NOT the future, but many of us need to hold onto it a bit longer until the developers catch up. Sure MS can rip the band aid off and just ditch the desktop, forcing developers to write "apps", but they would hemorrhage money while doing it until they caught up.

Microsoft needs to play to the strength of legacy apps. It keeps a huge audience captive. Encouraging a standard for ports and 3rd party accessories for all Windows 8 tablets would allow all the manufacturers to focus on the tablet while accessory companies provide universal keyboard/docking solutions. Legacy apps require Windows. Windows 8 tablets can run most of them. Don't run away from something that binds you to so many customers just to attempt to look trendy.

Not sure if you can compare the two. Windows 8 is pretty pollished and the Android phones and tablets that came out to challenge the iPad and iPhone were crap. Early Android itself was buggy and had lag. Manufacturers were just spewing out Android devices without consideration of quality. The problem is RT vs. Pro on tablets. MS should have just left it at Pro and not bothered with RT (leaving RT to the phones) They should have sold the Pro version at the RT prices and marketed that as the Android/iOS competitor.

Agreed, RT is as good as dead. Windows 8 is reasonable stable for most tasks.

Was given a Surface RT at work for 2 weeks to test. Fell in love but it was lacking something. When it was time to give it back, I bought myself the Surface Pro. I love it. Been getting more use than my iPad2. So far I'm satisfied.

For work environments that are standardized on Windows, a Windows 8 tablet is a very viable option. If I didn't need the Verizon tethering my iPad 3 provides I'd probably sell it.

I see your point, I do agree with you. But what many consumers don't understand, and that's MS fault for crappy marketing, is a windows tablet CAN be just as good as an ipad at being what I like to call a "dumb tablet". You can go into Metro and never ever touch the desktop if you don't need to, but if you want to run legacy programs you have that option, if you want to draw on a wacom screen that option is there, if you want to view a flash or java website that option is there, etc etc.

I also understand if you don't want to give up your laptop, but many of us do. I know the ipad wasn't marketed towards replacing a laptop, but still many of us had that hope when it was released. I'm just saying that with a windows tablet it is VERY viable to consider giving up your laptop instead of carrying both around. I do disagree that you need a laptop though, and that disagreement is based primarily around the fact that I have a windows tablet and you have an ipad. Nothing wrong with either scenario, but in my scenario I don't "need" a laptop.

It's viable because it is a real Windows computer. iPads are great devices but that have very different use cases. They work well if you can get the app you need while Windows tablets do handle most tasks without the need for dedicated apps.

Well the biggest mistake with RT, besides confusing and splitting their customers, was the notion that they could out ipad the ipad. If everything else is equal, battery life, screen, thinness, weight, size, then what really matters is the App market, basically MS came to a gunfight with a pocket knife. They left their gatling gun at home, which is all the legacy programs windows has. They were morons for trying to compete directly with the ipad on an app level.

Agreed, for Windows tablets legacy is their secret weapon.

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.

As I state here there is a definite market for the low cost fully functional Windows tablet. Refine hardware a bit and position it properly and Microsoft could have a winner (as the Windows license holder since I doubt they will ever dominate the hardware business).

Get Atom tablets to include 4GB of RAM and you'll have a great alternative that runs most anything found on the Internet and your office.

Cheers,

 

[LordVic]

So in the meantime just buy an iPad?

Thats exactly the point.

In the meantime, the current mistakes in the sales and marketting of the Surface make the ipad a much better option.

 

[Battlefield Fan]

I've used a Surface Pro at work, gotta say it's great for blue screens, manually editing registry keys, and running malware scanners

The fanboy force is strong with you.

 

[panzer06]

Thats exactly the point.

In the meantime, the current mistakes in the sales and marketing of the Surface make the iPad a much better option.

I enjoy my iPad 3 (as I did the 1 & 2 before) but sales and marketing have nothing to do with whether buying a Windows 8 tablet is appropriate for an individual.

Microsoft is primarily a software company that produced the Surface line to help kickstart the Windows 8 Tablet market. There are other less expensive Windows 8 based options available.

Cheers,

 

[Michael Goff]

I own a surface RT.

Over the past 6 months, I've been giving it to people saying "it is yours if you can find a use for it, no strings attached". ... I still own a surface RT.

Compared to an iPad, it is a crap tablet.

Compared to a Macbook Air, it is a crap notebook.

It DOES suck. It is slow. Clumsy to hold. Subpar 'laptop' at a table. Lacks basic apps. Display isn't great. Doesn't connect to enterprise networks. And the OS is infuriating a lot of the time.

Still offering to give it away if somebody can find a use for it?

I'd pay for shipping!

 

[Renzatic]

Compared to what??! Vista?? That wasn't such a hard victory now was it.

This might be hard for you to believe, but there are quite a few people who actually like Windows 7 better than OSX. It's the perfect no frills all business desktop OS. It's stable, solid, fast, and does whatever job you throw at it quickly and without complaint.

You know, with MS' propensity to screw things up horribly on their first try, only to nail it perfectly on their second go, the Surface 2 could very well be a huge threat to the iPad.

 

[malexandria]

Silly

Office is marginalized more and more everyday

This is the stupidest fanboy quote I've read in weeks. In the REAL world people use OFFICE, while some may not love it, it is the best office productivity product on the market for a reason and is in use by 99% of companies. To claim otherwise is just crazy, fanboy, wishful thinking.

Until Apple actually starts supporting iWork that will never be a viable alternative in a professional environment and open source solutions like Open Office are just buggy, overly complicated crap.

 

[whiteboytrash]

This is the stupidest fanboy quote I've read in weeks. In the REAL world people use OFFICE, while some may not love it, it is the best office productivity product on the market for a reason and is in use by 99% of companies. To claim otherwise is just crazy, fanboy, wishful thinking.

Until Apple actually starts supporting iWork that will never be a viable alternative in a professional environment and open source solutions like Open Office are just buggy, overly complicated crap.

What is this REAL world you refer to? Where people do REAL work? Where is this place? Are they really all professional?

Real work, real world.

 

[malexandria]

I wish someone would define "real work".

Is real work the same for everyone?

I wish I knew this "real work" thing that people speak of...

For me, it is extensive writing, editing, capturing video and photos, transferring files from my digital camera, etc... None of which I can really do easily with my iPad 2 - because the camera sucks and holding it to take a photo just feels retarded - although, I know a lot of people who do and I never could get any of those SD Card connectors to work either.

----------

What is this REAL world you refer to? Where people do REAL work? Where is this place? Are they really all professional?

Real work, real world.

If you have to ask, then you don't know? It's large fortune 500 companies that I personally deal with on a day to day basis. Even the ones that use Macs, use Office for Macs or Parallels. So you please tell me, where are these companies you speak of that don't use office? Please tell us.

 

[TWSS37]

Android phone sales were lackluster in their first year against the iPhone. Android tablet sales were lackluster in their first year against the iPad.

Both are doing just fine today... you can't judge long term viability in an established market by how well a company competes in the first year.

I'm sure someone has "this"'ed this already in some way, but this was more or less what my comment was going to be after reading the article. So... this.

(Not to mention 1st gen iPad sales weren't exactly great either, but I do realize were far more than the Surface's initial launch.)

 

[whiteboytrash]

For me, it is extensive writing, editing, capturing video and photos, transferring files from my digital camera, etc... None of which I can really do easily with my iPad 2 - because the camera sucks and holding it to take a photo just feels retarded - although, I know a lot of people who do and I never could get any of those SD Card connectors to work either.

----------



If you have to ask, then you don't know? It's large fortune 500 companies that I personally deal with on a day to day basis. Even the ones that use Macs, use Office for Macs or Parallels. So you please tell me, where are these companies you speak of that don't use office? Please tell us.

Got it.

You mean "your work" is "real work".

Many have different types of work than you. You do realise this don't you? And not every Fortune 500 company is office bound.

Rather the "real work" I think you mean "office work" - which is where laptops and desktop fit in. Which is the concept when the iPad was unveiled. Fits between phone and laptop.

 

[NSeven]

Yea i thought this was Mac Rumors.........

 

[Taz Mangus]

It's the perfect no frills all business desktop OS. It's stable, solid, fast, and does whatever job you throw at it quickly and without complaint.

I use Windows 7 enterprise at work everyday and it is far from being stable and solid.