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

[Renzatic]

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I'm most definitely in the second school of thought. I got into the whole computer thing long after the GUI became the de facto standard, and barely even know a handful of powershell or bash commands. I'm all about getting everything as streamlined as possible because I don't want to have to deal with anything later.

As far as desktops and mobile goes, I'm of the opinion that mobile can eventually replace laptops for a number of tasks, but we're always gonna have a need for desktops OSes for certain things. That said, I don't think everything should be needlessly complicated on the desktops. Just because I can work my way through all the myriad menus and submenus in Windows doesn't mean I think that's the way it should always be done. There are times when you need a little complexity, but simplicity should be what every OS aims for.

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I think Windows 7 on it's own is a great DESKTOP OS. I'm just saying that the average consumer doesn't differentiate between retail bloat and Windows when it comes to user experience. Sorry, but you know this is true.

Average consumers do not want that same experience on their mobile devices. Hell, even geeks dont want that experience. Example: Many geeks bitch about the bloat on Android devices and just want a pure android experience.

You know, most of my experiences with the average user usually don't have them blaming Windows directly. It's always "...but I thought I got a good computer".

But you are right about one thing: geeks, average consumers, whatever, no one wants bloat.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

It's the wrong brand. That's the real problem. At this point, Apple really doesn't have to worry about the competition because the Apple logo at this point is all it takes. What a great place to be.

If that were true iOS and iDevices wouldn't be losing world marketshare to Android. Apple is a "loved," "admired" brand right now but that doesn't correlate to mesmerized consumers that will look at nothing else.

 

[baryon]

By officially dead, I assume you mean "likely going to be the most used for the foreseeable future".

I mean that Microsoft seems completely uninterested in developing Windows for the desktop. Sure Windows 8 still has a desktop mode, but it's just a "by the way, it can still do that if you really want it" feature. They're not even advertising it. All they can say is "Windows 8 is awesome because it has tiles and touch support" which is completely irrelevant for a desktop PC user.

While Apple is trying to innovate in both iOS and OS X, Microsoft only seems interested in their tablet OS solution which no one really uses on a tablet. And yes, it is likely going to be the most used OS, but on a desktop PC. So Windows 8 should have great desktop features. Currently it's almost identical to Windows 7. They put the desktop OS aside and spent all their effort developing a layer into the OS that won't be used on a device for which it was designed.

 

[olowott]

am sorry Microsoft

Nokia please make an android phone - Thank you

 

[AppleScruff1]

Guess I'm too late then.

I think the surface pro is pretty great myself. I am all over the place with technology. For laptops and desktops, I use Macs almost exclusively and love them. Smartphones, I moved to android awhile back and it just works much better for me than iOS. I grabbed a surface pro when it came out simply because I needed an ultra-portable windows machine for the road. I friken' love it. Vastly exceeded my expectations. It does have some quirks, such as being clumsy when using it on your lap. I do use it on my lap frequently, so it is by no means unusable that way... but it is a little awkward that way. It needs better battery life which I hope is addressed with the next iteration, but from a purely functional standpoint it is wildly impressive.

I genuinely hope it catches on a little better with a surface two for no other reason than the fact that I really don't want this to go away.

I hope that Microsoft has a Surface Pro 2 coming out in the near future with a Haswell chip. That should help with battery life. I agree that the Pro is a most impressive product.

 

[Renzatic]

I mean that Microsoft seems completely uninterested in developing Windows for the desktop. Sure Windows 8 still has a desktop mode, but it's just a "by the way, it can still do that if you really want it" feature. They're not even advertising it. All they can say is "Windows 8 is awesome because it has tiles and touch support" which is completely irrelevant for a desktop PC user.

While Apple is trying to innovate in both iOS and OS X, Microsoft only seems interested in their tablet OS solution which no one really uses on a tablet. And yes, it is likely going to be the most used OS, but on a desktop PC. So Windows 8 should have great desktop features. Currently it's almost identical to Windows 7. They put the desktop OS aside and spent all their effort developing a layer into the OS that won't be used on a device for which it was designed.

Win8 actually gives a few nice bonuses to the desktop, and it's hardly treated as a secondary way of doing things. You won't hear MS talk much about it because they're all about hyping up their touch platforms at the moment.

 

[LordVic]

Been using Win8 on the desktop since launch.

Aside from the redone launcher, the functionality of windows itself hasn't changed at all.

Some things are in new places, but you can operate, virtually forever in desktop spaces, with the only time needing to use the new launcher is well, the exact same time youd use the start menu in windows 7.

the core functionality of the UI has not changed.

What has changed is the added feature of fullscreen touch oriented applications. these "metro" apps. This is what everyone moans and complains about... and rightfully so. on a desktop, they are terrible, cludgy and very non intuitive.

Thankfully, They are also very unnecessary and you can live your entire computer experience without ever using them.

one of the major problems IMHO with the RT, is that these apps are the requirement.

 

[APlotdevice]

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.

There is a big difference between selling to a market you already own and selling in a market that has already been been heavily saturated by your competitors. While the Surface 2 could prove to be a threat, the odds are heavily stacked against it.

 

[Black Magic]

Been using Win8 on the desktop since launch.

Aside from the redone launcher, the functionality of windows itself hasn't changed at all.

Some things are in new places, but you can operate, virtually forever in desktop spaces, with the only time needing to use the new launcher is well, the exact same time youd use the start menu in windows 7.

the core functionality of the UI has not changed.

What has changed is the added feature of fullscreen touch oriented applications. these "metro" apps. This is what everyone moans and complains about... and rightfully so. on a desktop, they are terrible, cludgy and very non intuitive.

Thankfully, They are also very unnecessary and you can live your entire computer experience without ever using them.

one of the major problems IMHO with the RT, is that these apps are the requirement.

Actually to stay in desktop mode on a Windows 8 machine, you have to do some serious tweaking. First of all you have to change program associations for some file extensions like photos and such to name one tweak. Not very intuitive and user friendly for the average consumer.

 

[Northgrove]

How could this happen?! It has a USB port!!

 

[tongxinshe]

Microsoft Surface is actually a pretty good product ... better than Android or even iOS in some respects.

I think the failure has more to do with marketing - the confusion between RT and Pro. Also, forcing consumers to use Windows 8 on the desktop did help to engender good will. Lack of developer support didn't help. Partnering with Nokia (a dying phone company) to produce a line of bum phones didn't help Microsoft's image either.

Surface RT is basically useless, I mean REALLY TOTALLY WHOLLY USELESS!!!
Surface Pro is VERY USEFUL, but it's too heavy, too thick and too expensive!

 

[lpoulain]

That's 1.7 million more than I expected. So I guess I'm reading this as good news for Microsoft!

I agree with this. We are living thru an interesting phase in the development of the tablet. It is inevitable that iPad will share the market with competing and contrasting products. The maturation of this market segment will in the long run help Apple, which products are distinctive and desirable, even as market share goes down.

So, I hope that MS does something good with the Surface, and contributes to pushing the market segment along as more and more people abandon the PC as their primary computing device.

 

[LordVic]

Actually to stay in desktop mode on a Windows 8 machine, you have to do some serious tweaking. First of all you have to change program associations for some file extensions like photos and such to name one tweak. Not very intuitive and user friendly for the average consumer.

Never had to do that with my setup.

But could also be because I almost instinctively install 3rd party programs to do almost everything I do on my computer.

 

[Renzatic]

There is a big difference between selling to a market you already own and selling in a market that has already been been heavily saturated by your competitors. While the Surface 2 could prove to be a threat, the odds are heavily stacked against it.

It depends. I think the Surface sold poorly mostly because it didn't blow enough people away to get much mindshare, not because it was a bad product overall. It was a puttering good enough. Something you'd damn with faint praise. This means the Surface 2 doesn't necessarily have a stigma attached to the name. If it's really good, it could still sell.

...but it has to be really good if they want to post iPad like numbers. They can't half ass it like they did with the RT.

 

[spinedoc77]

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.

Yep, MS has very deep pockets and will continue to push, what other choice do they have? PC sales are way down and they know they have to push into the mobile space or die so they will keep throwing big money at the problem. Hopefully they can learn from their massive massive mistakes, but seeing as how they keep pushing RT it seems they are totally committed to screwing up this launch, it's a shame.

 

[0098386]

So did you get one? You said wanted. If not why not? If so, how do you like and are you still using it?

Not in the market for a new device. I might do once Apple forgets my Gen 3 iPad exists and stops supporting it, it'll basically be a toss up between whatever "all in one" device is out at the time.

 

[Black Magic]

I'm most definitely in the second school of thought. I got into the whole computer thing long after the GUI became the de facto standard, and barely even know a handful of powershell or bash commands. I'm all about getting everything as streamlined as possible because I don't want to have to deal with anything later.

As far as desktops and mobile goes, I'm of the opinion that mobile can eventually replace laptops for a number of tasks, but we're always gonna have a need for desktops OSes for certain things. That said, I don't think everything should be needlessly complicated on the desktops. Just because I can work my way through all the myriad menus and submenus in Windows doesn't mean I think that's the way it should always be done. There are times when you need a little complexity, but simplicity should be what every OS aims for.

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You know, most of my experiences with the average user usually don't have them blaming Windows directly. It's always "...but I thought I got a good computer".

But you are right about one thing: geeks, average consumers, whatever, no one wants bloat.

Because when you say PC its pretty much synonymous with Windows. Those bad experiences live on in the minds of the consumers and hurt Microsoft's brand. Again, nobody wants that Windows/PC experience on their mobile devices. You see an ad for Windows Phone and it's a complete turn off just on the name alone.

Outside of canning Balmer, I think creating a new brand, OS, ecosystem and vision would be just about the best thing Microsoft could do to get back in the hunt on the consumer side. No chance in hell this will happen as MS is already prepping Surface RT 2 with some tweaks like AD compatibility and such.

 

[spinedoc77]

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.

I don't think that's the case. I can throw pretty much everything at my Atom tablet and it behaves very well. The only exception is games, but even the surface Pro is awful at games so I kind of think that's a lost cause, at least for this generation. IMO and experience with almost every atom tablet out there MS could have definitely released an atom powered surface variant and I'll bet it would have done well.

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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 think "arguably" is a key word there. I would definitely argue that the ipad is the best tablet, but it's all subjective and I can only put in my own opinion based on my uses. If anything I think the ipad is the worst tablet out of all the tablets on the market.

 

[tongxinshe]

Can you check your email on it? Facebook? Browse the internet? Skype? So it does what 90% of the people use their tablets for.

How about the other 10% functionality I need everyday? Buy another product? Well, that "another product" could do the rest 90% as well, so why bother? When you say "90%" or "80%", make sure that "80%" at least cover 100% of needed functionality for enough population.

 

[spinedoc77]

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...

Word processing, graphics, programming, healthcare records, etc etc just to name a very few. It's not tough to see how these can function on a windows tablet, even if that means connecting a keyboard, or when you get to work plopping it into a docking station on a large monitor.

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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?

Well, I understand this is only MY use scenario, but I walk around with my tablet and take handwritten notes on it all day. Then later on I convert those notes into text and generate whatever reports need to come from them. I love the tablet form factor, I can whip out my tablet anywhere I am to use it, on the subway, waiting at an office, etc, you can't do that with an ultrabook. Plus I get 10.5 + hours of battery life, and my tablet is probably thinner and lighter than any ultrabook, or at least the vast majority of them. I'd say considering weight, portability, battery life and durability the balance tips HEAVILY to a tablet, screen size can be a wash since there are 13" tablets, and one variant of the macbook air is 11", but arguably you can have a 15" or 17" laptop, but then you throw all portability out the door.

 

[Renzatic]

Because when you say PC its pretty much synonymous with Windows. Those bad experiences live on in the minds of the consumers and hurt Microsoft's brand. Again, nobody wants that Windows/PC experience on their mobile devices. You see an ad for Windows Phone and it's a complete turn off just on the name alone.

Microsoft is still one of the most trusted brands around. People don't see an advertisement for a Windows Phone and freak out because they remember problems with XP. To them, a computer is a computer, not necessarily a Windows PC. This sometimes changes a bit when they play with a Mac and find it a better experience for them, but a relative few do that.

And Windows Phone isn't a huge turn off for the entire world. It's done nothing but grow since it's debut a couple years back. Slowly, sure, but it's up and coming.

Though I will agree with you about one thing. MS should quit slapping "Windows" on everything they sell. When you have Windows RT that looks like Windows 8 when you're on the start menu, but can't run Windows 8 apps though Windows 8 can run Windows RT apps, and Windows Phone which is even more different, it'll do nothing but confuse the hell out of people.

 

[tongxinshe]

Because of Apple's reluctance to release a digitizer/stylus version of the iPad, I was very interested in the Surface Pro. I was looking forward to using OneNote and Photoshop on a portable tablet with a real stylus.

I liked the hardware design. It was a good size/weight with the performance of a laptop. The only thing missing was a cell service option.

And then I tried the software. First there were no drivers for Photoshop for the stylus. Then I tried Office -- No Metro interface. This is Microsoft's premiere new product and they didn't update their most popular software to support it? Then I tried OneNote and cried a little. An application originally designed for a pen-based interface and it had no clue it was running on a pen-based device.

Either Metro was rushed to market or Microsoft really has been twiddling their thumbs for the past 3 years.

There are plenty of stylus for iPad on the market, you don't have to wait for Apple to produce one.

 

[whiteboytrash]

Is that why there were more traditional PC sales than tablet sales even with a lowering traditional PC market?



I don't have an agenda, I'm just damn tired of random pointless and meaningless words being thrown around. People need to stop beating around the bush and say we might be entering an era where Windows is less relevant than before.

That's a good argument.

Word processing, graphics, programming, healthcare records, etc etc just to name a very few. It's not tough to see how these can function on a windows tablet, even if that means connecting a keyboard, or when you get to work plopping it into a docking station on a large monitor.

So a doctor saving lives is not real work?

A road crew painting white lines on a road to avoid crashes is not real work?

Playing a musical instrument for other people's pleasure is not real work?

Real work comes in many facets. It doesn't always involve a desk, a keyboard and a monitor.

Saw a guy once. In a nightclub. Beat mixing a 3 hour set on two iPads with two old school iPods 120gb strapped in. To him, that's real work. The 500 people who paid $60 to get in the door plus drinks paid for his excellent real work.

And not a keyboard in sight

 

[Renzatic]

There are plenty of stylus for iPad on the market, you don't have to wait for Apple to produce one.

He's talking about a proper digitizer for the iPad. Yeah, there are plenty of good capacitive nub styluses (what do you know, that's actually a word) for the iPad, but none of them are nearly as good as having a proper fine point pressure sensitive stylus.

 

[spinedoc77]

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.

Yep, just because ipads are dominant (somewhat) doesn't mean that Windows doesn't outnumber iOS and OSx put together. Personally I find Windows more intuitive, simple things like the taskbar versus the awful awful dock bar in OSx.

As for the tablets, I am just not getting what people don't like. I see a LOT of chest thumping without real world experience, it's like if I never used an ipad ever but came on here telling everyone how much it sucked. Metro itself is very nice after the 8.1 update and IMO is just as good as iOS, better in some ways, worse in others, with the only obvious caveat is the app store, but man give MS some props here they really populated their app store pretty quickly. They are working hard on it. I don't know why people hate just to hate, it's a very viable, usable and fun platform, give it a chance, you may be surprised.

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Same here. Windows has to be rebooted daily for me, otherwise I start getting weird problems, like the mouse pointer lagging sometimes, apps starting to act weird (slowing down, crashing, hanging for very long). If I reboot daily, these things don't happen as much. But there are so many other problems: drivers often crash or simply fail to load on startup, apps sometimes take ages to load (on a fresh fast computer), etc…

A big problem with Windows is how it can't read Raw files and PSDs, and it glitches a lot with TIFF files. Then you have the problem of old "startup items" still starting up even though you've uninstalled the program, annoying updates that nag you about rebooting while you're in the middle of something (if you're not around to dismiss the message because you're on lunch or something, you WILL lose unsaved files as Windows will simply force quit all apps just to install its useless updates).

Then you have the non-existant window management system. There's nothing like Exposé or Spaces, you still have to stick to Alt-Tabbing your way through apps like you did 20 years ago.

And the thing I hate the most: accidentally pressing the Windows key or the Alt key while retouching in Photoshop. It completely breaks whatever you're doing as it opens a menu. Alt being an important key in Photoshop, you have to press it all the time. Just this alone annoys me more than all the other problems combined.

Then you have Windows 8 which is not a desktop OS, so I guess Windows for the desktop is officially dead?

You should really really look into spyware, malware or virus software for your PC, it sounds like it's compromised. I'm 100% sure you would not exaggerate, no one exaggerates on these forums, so I can only assume you have a virurs or something.

As for expose versus alt tab, this is another reason I'm kind of baffled why people don't like something they are not even familiar with. Windows 8 introduced some extremely cool task switching functions. Swipe from the left and you can go thru all of your programs, swipe and hold and it shows a list/snapshot of all your open programs, swipe a program in and you can full screen it, or you can partial screen it to run it side by side with another program.