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Microsoft Surface Estimated to Have Sold Only 1.7 Million Units Since Launch
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My windows tablet runs 10.5+ hours, it weighs at least the same as an ipad, maybe less, it's just as thin too. I agree about the display, this is a weak point on the windows tablets, although personally I don't see much difference on a 10" tablet, but then again I can't hear the difference between digital and analog music. But I won't deny the screen, at least in terms of specs and spec whores is definitely a shortcoming on the windows tablets and should be addressed.
RT still has a reason to exist, for people who don't want any x86 but likes the Modern UI. Like I said on another forum, actually, the best reason to get a Windows RT tablet right now is because they're cheap and you get Office with them.
That likely won't stop, and you won't get Office for free on an atom tablet.
Hmmm.... checking one's facebook page or tweeting is not "creation". Collaborating with a dozen people using MS-Office is.
I don't know, I haven't used a mouse a SINGLE time on my windows tablet, never. Also your ignorance of windows is showing my friend. If you right swipe and hit settings, then scroll to Search & Apps, then go down to Defaults you can change the default settings for programs, gasp...without going into desktop.
I don't work for MS, here's a shocker, I like iOS, Ilove my iphone, I don't use a WP phone, I use an Apple router, etc. I pick and choose whichever device suits my needs as well. I'm not debating that the ipad is a better device for YOU, I just wish people would stop griping and at least be a bit more open minded about what's out there. Competition is a good thing.
If you hold up a Gen 1 iPad now they look old and are HEAVY. At the time though - bees knees.
Yes RT could become competitive and completely agree there is a place for it in the market. It will never be market leader though. Needs to be untied from the desktop. At the moment Surface ecosystem is Windows -yuk.
iPad is iTunes which is bad but its the 7000 million gig of music, movies and photos you have.
My PDF collection is 300GB alone in contracts files. My clients love me though. As I always have their contracts on hand. Even the ones from 5 years ago.
No one is going to wrestle me away from that sort of productivity.
And lastly. Battery life. It is the be all and end all of any device. I don't care what that device is. If you can't provide me 1 whole work day of battery life then go ¥¥@€ yourself.
Yeah but I NEVER disagreed with you. The surface RT and the surface pro ARE flops, I've ALWAYS said this, even months ago when we didn't know. Windows 8 in it's present form IS affecting sales and turning off consumers, I've ALWAYS said this as well. I think you have a penchant for reading quickly through threads and not really understanding what the person has to say, then knee jerking a reaction.
Microsoft obtained the contract to write an OS for the IBM-PC before they bought QDOS, which did require a substantial re-coding. Gates was crafty enough to retain the rights to sell MS-DOS on PCs not made by IBM, but what he could not have known at the time was that the PC would be legally cloned. Once that happened, Microsoft owned a gold mine. They've been extracting cash from it for 30 years now, without hardly breaking a sweat. I wouldn't say it necessarily made them lazy, but it didn't make them hungry or ambitious, either.
The scheme they used to force all competitors off the PC platform was dubbed the "CPU tax." To license MS-DOS, an OEM had to agree to pay Microsoft a license fee for every CPU they sold, whether it had MS-DOS installed, something else installed, or nothing installed. This practice was blatantly illegal and was ended under at Consent Decree in the early '90s. Damage already done. Then they moved onto other blatantly illegal practices.
Oh, yeah I agree, the ipad can do *some* real work. I'd argue a windows tablet can do more office type work, and even non office work, the only thing that makes the ipad more versatile is it has more apps, something that will be solved in the future. But I don't deny your point, they are different devices to a certain extent, for sure.
How wonderfully condescending of you.
But collaborating with a dozen people using Google docs is not? And believe it or not, there is more to the enterprise than spreadsheets and word documents.
Actually they are giving away Office 2013 with Atom processors. I thought it was only the 8" ones, but I just bought a new Thinkpad Tablet 2 (to replace the one my daughter dropped in the bathtub) and it came with a FREE edition of Office 2013 installed.
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Windows RT only ships with Office Home & Student edition. Those who wish to use it for a business purpose are still expected to shell out for Office 365.
RT is just going to continue to do far more harm than good to the Windows brand.
If you hold up a Gen 1 iPad now they look old and are HEAVY. At the time though - bees knees.
Yes RT could become competitive and completely agree there is a place for it in the market. It will never be market leader though. Needs to be untied from the desktop. At the moment Surface ecosystem is Windows -yuk.
iPad is iTunes which is bad but its the 7000 million gig of music, movies and photos you have.
My PDF collection is 300GB alone in contracts files. My clients love me though. As I always have their contracts on hand. Even the ones from 5 years ago.
No one is going to wrestle me away from that sort of productivity.
And lastly. Battery life. It is the be all and end all of any device. I don't care what that device is. If you can't provide me 1 whole work day of battery life then go ¥¥@ yourself.
Exactly, and they're (I believe) in the process of de-coupling it from the desktop. My reasoning is this. They're moving almost everything to the Metro-Settings in the first go with only a few things remaining. Then they have Office, which is going Metro in 2014 by all accounts (likely with 8.2 or a little before). That will remove the need for the desktop, which will lower the footprint even more.
Then we have the possibility for more modern chipsets AND my hope that they will work more to improve the battery life of current devices. As it is now, though, I get the same battery life between an iPad 2 and my Surface RT.
I also have to agree that it will never be a market leader, but I don't think it needs to be to be a good product.
Odd. I guess this debate is over for me. We both appear to see eye to eye on this. Not sure about the knee jerk reaction comment but definitely not worth bantering over. Cheers!
Home and Student is more than enough for a lot of people. Of course, most offices that have something could simply update it with their own licenses. But that still doesn't detract from the idea that buying RT gets you Office, it just means it doesn't give you Office that you can use for your job (unless you do it anyway, not that they can stop you).
Until developers are convinced Microsoft is serious about keeping RT they won't spend time and money building Windows Apps when a full Windows Tablet can run most any "real" Windows application or surf most any website.
ASUS sells an Atom-based Tablet at $399 on Newegg and it comes with a version of Office 2013. These tablets are exactly what Microsoft needs to promote and they should promote it as a way to have all the consumable media you can get on other brands with the added benefit of being able to run most of your existing programs. You cannot beat the combined functionality and expandability available on these inexpensive Atom-based Windows 8 tablets.
Cheers,
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You can throw me in there too. I own a Surface Pro, own MSFT stock, preordered an XB1, etc. They company is trying to do some big things across all product lines. The things that hurt MS quarter after quarter are inconsistent execution, horrible marketing, and that they're an eroded brand. But their strategy and innovation is actually better than people give them credit for.
Metro is fine as long as you have a touchscreen. What gave it bad PR is OEM's were putting it on hw without a touchscreen, and the huge corporate install base is not gonna retrofit their cubicles with touchscreen monitors just so they can use W8 properly.
RT is a failure. W8 without a touchscreen is a dumb idea.
The Pro and sticking the x86 ecosystem on tablets are good ideas that Google and Apple would never do because they treat mobile software as a commodity and are married to ARM
Im actually surprised it sold that many. I bought one at launch and Ive been pretty happy with it. Of course Microsofts problem is the ecosystem and the need for improvement there. I suspect MS with stick with it especially with all the money they have in it so far.
I'll just recycle this post from a few pages back:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17663430/
iPads in enterprise IS happening. Just like it is happening everywhere else.
Well I differ on this. If the OS was all Metro through and through and Office was all Metro I think it would be decent. Consistent look and feel across the device would be a great start. Even if that was done, it still would not be enough to outsell Android or iOS because the only killer feature that MS has at this point is Office. Office has slowly lost its relevance as time went on. It should be on Android and iOS as stand alone apps a long time ago but they missed that opportunity and folks found alternatives. MS should just give up on the consumer side or start over again.
MS is a massive multi headed dragon though and have diversified so much that losing the mobile war will not kill them. They are successful in so many other markets with little to no competition that its sad in many ways. I do believe they are currently vulnerable though and are ripe for someone else to disrupt another market. Time will tell.
Agree with most of this, however, I must say I avoided Windows 8 because of all the bad press but when I eventually got a lightweight inexpensive SLI 750 based laptop that came with Windows 8 I cloned the slow 5400rpm drive to a Samsung SSD and haven't looked back. Sure it took some getting used to and there are still some thing that annoy me but overall it's fine. Other than a few poorly written Java Apps I haven't run into anything I couldn't run on it faster than my previous Alienware machine running Windows 7.
RT is a conundrum in that if it was based on the same code set as Windows phone and Apps were interoperable across both platforms with automatic scaling you might have a winner for really cheap Android competitors. Perhaps that combo might have sold enough to warrant greater interest in developing Windows Apps.
Regardless RT is not longer necessary since Atom-based Tablets with a full copy of Windows are readily available at very reasonable prices.
Now Microsoft and it's partners need to show people why they don't need an iPad and iPhone when they already have a Windows PC. They should market to their base and forget about the affluent Apple trendsetters. Just convincing people sitting on old PCs to jump could make a huge difference.
Cheers,