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

[Krazy Bill]

How wonderfully condescending of you.

I visit Fortune 500 companies every day. It's the same thing all the time. In January the office is full of iPads. By March they're all lugging around their Lenovos again. Not saying the like them... it's just the way it is.

But collaborating with a dozen people using Google docs is not?

Overrated.

And believe it or not, there is more to the enterprise than spreadsheets and word documents.

So who's buying all those copies of Office?

 

[whiteboytrash]

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.

In that time another 70m iPads will be sold and 20-30 million android tablets.

Both android and iPad will have new features and updates.

By then it's almost a lost cause but they'll find a niche.

iPhone Gen 1 at $500 plus a contract took a long time to get going. Like 12 months before it broke 2m in sales.

 

[Michael Goff]

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,

I still feel as though it'd be easier for them to get it working better by optimizing for a few ARM SoC and that will translate to better performance and battery life when compared to atom.

----------

In that time another 70m iPads will be sold and 20-30 million android tablets.

Both android and iPad will have new features and updates.

By then it's almost a lost cause but they'll find a niche.

iPhone Gen 1 at $500 plus a contract took a long time to get going. Like 12 months before it broke 2m in sales.

So you say it's a lost cause because it will be a niche, then you point out how the original iPad started off with slow sales.

It's almost like you don't have a real point and are just throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks.

 

[APlotdevice]

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.

If this were any other company, that might be enough. But we're talking about Microsoft here. A company that has dominated the computing market for decades. The shift towards tablets and other "smart devices" spells big trouble for them and they know it.

 

[whiteboytrash]

I still feel as though it'd be easier for them to get it working better by optimizing for a few ARM SoC and that will translate to better performance and battery life when compared to atom.

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So you say it's a lost cause because it will be a niche, then you point out how the original iPad started off with slow sales.

It's almost like you don't have a real point and are just throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Apologies. I didn't mean to offend. I said the iPhone and not the iPad was a slow starter.

iPad sold like crazy from day 1 and people didn't know what the device was meant to do!

Power of the people.

I'm just being honest. RT has 10-15 years ( if it chooses to stay in the game that long) of 3-7% market share - tops.

Reality.

That's ok. Windows has owned he desktop OS market with 90%+ since day one.

This will be a good experience for them.

 

[Michael Goff]

If this were any other company, that might be enough. But we're talking about Microsoft here. A company that has dominated the computing market for decades. The shift towards tablets and other "smart devices" spells big trouble for them and they know it.

Or it could go the xBox route. It isn't the market leader, but it sells enough to make a profit.

Apologies. I didn't mean to offend. I said the iPhone and not the iPad was a slow starter.

iPad sold like crazy from day 1 and people didn't know what the device was meant to do!

Power of the people.

I'm just being honest. RT has 10-15 years ( if it chooses to stay in the game that long) of 3-7% market share - tops.

Reality.

That's ok. Windows has owned he desktop OS market with 90%+ since day one.

This will be a good experience for them.

Didn't offend, I was just trying to figure out your message. I don't have the gloomy 3-7% idea that you do, I see them cracking 15% at some point. It doesn't have to be a market leader, just make a profit. And I think that, with time, it will make an excellent addition to the "pillars of Microsoft" (or maybe supplement the Windows pillar).

 

[Renzatic]

I'm just being honest. RT has 10-15 years ( if it chooses to stay in the game that long) of 3-7% market share - tops.

Not necessarily. When MS debuted the Xbox, it was a slow starter. It barely broke into the console scene at first, and was soundly beaten by the juggernaut PS2, and the Gamecube.

The Xbox360 was an entirely different story. They marketed it right, got a solid amount of exclusives, and came out before the PS3 at a much lower price point. It ended up being a skyrocketing success for them.

The same could happen with the Surface line. It might be a slow, nearly non-starter now, but if MS sticks with it, markets it better, makes it more readily available, and gets more high end, must have apps, it could eventually take off.

Yeah, there are a lot of "ifs" in there, and it all depends on whether MS can manage to pull their heads out for a second and manage the thing properly, but I wouldn't count it out yet. The mobile scene is still a brand new, ever changing market.

 

[Michael Goff]

Not necessarily. When MS debuted the Xbox, it was a slow starter. It barely broke into the console scene at first, and was soundly beaten by the juggernaut PS2, and the Gamecube.

The Xbox360 was an entirely different story. They marketed it right, got a solid amount of exclusives, and came out before the PS3 at a much lower price point. It ended up being a skyrocketing success for them.

The same could happen with the Surface line. It might be a slow, nearly non-starter now, but if MS sticks with it, markets it better, makes it more readily available, and gets more high end, must have apps, it could eventually take off.

Yeah, there are a lot of "ifs" in there, and it all depends on whether MS can manage to pull their heads out for a second and manage the thing properly, but I wouldn't count it out yet. The mobile scene is still a brand new, ever changing market.

And yet the 360 didn't win the war in terms of sales either. It barely sold more than the PS3.

My point is that Microsoft gets it right in the second gen a lot of the time, and they're likely going to keep RT if it ends up making them a profit. Which I have no doubt that it will, if they can show the reason for it to exist.

 

[APlotdevice]

Or it could go the xBox route. It isn't the market leader, but it sells enough to make a profit.

I don't know what the typical annual revenue Microsoft draws in from Windows off-hand, but I imagine that it easily dwarfs their Xbox line. It certainly isn't a stretch to say that losing their lead in the consumer market would cost them billions.

 

[Liquorpuki]

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.

Office is still market leader in the traditional enterprise space. In the cloud space, it's about even with Google Docs but you look at how much money MS is pumping into 365 and the value proposition 365 offers over Office 2013, it's pretty clear what they think the future is.

And yeah, I agree, they should've committed Office and OneNote to Metro instead of having it link to the desktop. This is why I say their execution is inconsistent. I use OneNote a lot on my Pro and there's a full-featured OneNote app that runs off the W7 desktop (what I use), and a Metro version of the OneNote app you can download off the W8 store that is basically just a viewer. It should've been one app, period, with the Metro design language. This is why I think Ballmer's functional reorg is a good idea - it should eventually reconcile stuff like this.

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.

Yeah the point of RT was for MS to dive into ARM. PC market is shrinking and MS's overall solution is to port their PC profit stream to the cloud and tablet markets. Everyone knows they're trying to disrupt the tablet market by porting the x86 ecosystem to it via W8. At the same time nobody knows who's gonna win the ARM vs x86 war, so they put out RT to hedge themselves. Only thing is RT has no ecosystem and MS is lousy at creating one. Windows Phone 8 is another example of them trying to create an ecosystem - that's been a slow grind and a key reason why it's growing is because Nokia is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. With RT, nobody's doing anything.

Even if Atom tablets are more practical, RT makes sense strategically. But if they're not gonna push the ecosystem (and it looks like they aren't), it'll remain a failure and they should just kill it. The Surface RT release was the MS equivalent of HP and RIM positioning their ARM based tablets to go head to head against the iPad in the $500 price range. Big mistake when you have zero ecosystem.

 

[ChrisTX]

It's almost impossible to get into the smartphone market these days. Several companies that made an OS that was better than either Android or iOS in either one way or another, but the smartphone market relies more than any other one on the people selling them.

It didn't seem to matter to Apple when they entered the smartphone market in 2007, and transformed the entire market single handedly. If Microsoft were a little bit smarter, they have been keeping up all of these years instead of sleeping at the wheel.

 

[Michael Goff]

It didn't seem to matter to Apple when they entered the smartphone market in 2007, and transformed the entire market single handedly. If Microsoft were a little bit smarter, they have been keeping up all of these years instead of sleeping at the wheel.

Apple has a following that most companies would sell their left foot for, other companies don't have the legions of devoted fans that they do. Also, 2007 is a lot different than 2013. The iPhone was clearly different, which isn't something that can easily be done these days.

Edit: Apple has what I call the "Apple Effect". Most products go "use > purchase", but with Apple it seems "purchase > use".

 

[Renzatic]

And yet the 360 didn't win the war in terms of sales either. It barely sold more than the PS3.

It wasn't a curbstomp battle with MS coming out on top of the charred, crumbly remains of the competition, but it was a solid success story for them. They went from 3rd place wannabe to solid contender within a console generation just by playing their cards right and releasing a good, competitive product.

...which is something they haven't done with RT yet.

My point is that Microsoft gets it right in the second gen a lot of the time, and they're likely going to keep RT if it ends up making them a profit. Which I have no doubt that it will, if they can show the reason for it to exist.

Yup. I mentioned just that earlier. It's gotten to the point where you almost assume a new product of theirs is a beta 0.5 release, done just to see how the public will take it, then improve on it from there.

 

[Michael Goff]

It wasn't a curbstomp battle with MS coming out on top of the charred, crumbly remains of the competition, but it was a solid success story for them. They went from 3rd place wannabe to solid contender within a console generation just by playing their cards right and releasing a good, competitive product.

...which is something they haven't done with RT yet.



Yup. I mentioned just that earlier. It's gotten to the point where you almost assume a new product of theirs is a beta 0.5 release, done just to see how the public will take it, then improve on it from there.

I have no doubt that the will. I can already see the future of RT, at least theoretically, and it is beautiful.

 

[iSayuSay]

...
It is so true, pc's can not even handle switching wi-fi to ethernet without corrupting drivers, asus laptop and dell xps.

It has the problems it always has, putting a new interface on it and calling it windows 8 does not change how awful the core structure of the operating system is.

Yeahh .. and my iMac has always been spotty when connects to WiFi. Ironically it's fine under BootCamp. Talking about Apple makes the hardware and software, huh?
And to be honest most of my Mac has WiFi problems at some point.

Putting a new number on OSX and calling it Mountain something does not change how awful and incomplete the OSX really is.

Windows have BSOD yet Macs have KP too, they don't do it less often. So what's your point exactly?

 

[Black Magic]

Office is still market leader in the traditional enterprise space. In the cloud space, it's about even with Google Docs but you look at how much money MS is pumping into 365 and the value proposition 365 offers over Office 2013, it's pretty clear what they think the future is.

And yeah, I agree, they should've committed Office and OneNote to Metro instead of having it link to the desktop. This is why I say their execution is inconsistent. I use OneNote a lot on my Pro and there's a full-featured OneNote app that runs off the W7 desktop (what I use), and a Metro version of the OneNote app you can download off the W8 store that is basically just a viewer. It should've been one app, period, with the Metro design language. This is why I think Ballmer's functional reorg is a good idea - it should eventually reconcile stuff like this.



Yeah the point of RT was for MS to dive into ARM. PC market is shrinking and MS's overall solution is to port their PC profit stream to the cloud and tablet markets. Everyone knows they're trying to disrupt the tablet market by porting the x86 ecosystem to it via W8. At the same time nobody knows who's gonna win the ARM vs x86 war, so they put out RT to hedge themselves. Only thing is RT has no ecosystem and MS is lousy at creating one. Windows Phone 8 is another example of them trying to create an ecosystem - that's been a slow grind and a key reason why it's growing is because Nokia is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. With RT, nobody's doing anything.

Even if Atom tablets are more practical, RT makes sense strategically. But if they're not gonna push the ecosystem (and it looks like they aren't), it'll remain a failure and they should just kill it. The Surface RT release was the MS equivalent of HP and RIM positioning their ARM based tablets to go head to head against the iPad in the $500 price range. Big mistake when you have zero ecosystem.

Yea, but Balmer supposedly mentioned in his meetings with all employees last week plans for Surface RT 2. I think its DOA myself because there is no compelling reason to buy an MS product on the consumer side. No stand out feature or app. It's basically a me too device and not a very good one. I feel bad for the folks that bought the windows phone and the surface tablets because its basically flushing money down the drain while they wait to see if MS gets it right. By the time MS does get it right, your current products you purchased are obsolete. Windows Phone 7 is a perfect example.

 

[Michael Goff]

Yea, but Balmer supposedly mentioned in his meetings with all employees last week plans for Surface RT 2. I think its DOA myself because there is no compelling reason to buy an MS product on the consumer side. No stand out feature or app. It's basically a me too device and not a very good one. I feel bad for the folks that bought the windows phone and the surface tablets because its basically flushing money down the drain while they wait to see if MS gets it right. By the time MS does get it right, your current products you purchased are obsolete. Windows Phone 7 is a perfect example.

So they're changing the kernel again like they did between WP7 and WP8? What do you think is coming after NT?

:O

 

[APlotdevice]

The Xbox360 was an entirely different story. They marketed it right, got a solid amount of exclusives, and came out before the PS3 at a much lower price point. It ended up being a skyrocketing success for them.

Yeah... Microsoft's gaming division owes a lot of their success to Sony's arrogance. ("The Playstation 3 will retail for 599 U.S. Dollars!")

 

[Liquorpuki]

Yea, but Balmer supposedly mentioned in his meetings with all employees last week plans for Surface RT 2. I think its DOA myself because there is no compelling reason to buy an MS product on the consumer side. No stand out feature or app. It's basically a me too device and not a very good one. I feel bad for the folks that bought the windows phone and the surface tablets because its basically flushing money down the drain while they wait to see if MS gets it right. By the time MS does get it right, your current products you purchased are obsolete. Windows Phone 7 is a perfect example.

The Pro is actually very compelling. Ultrabook/tablet/small form factor PC rolled into a 2 pound device I can carry under my arm. Wacom digitizer. Access to the x86 ecosystem, instead of just cheap ARM software. Debate will continue once the Haswell version comes out.

RT at $500 sucks. At $350 it's on the edge of budget pricing. Personally I think they should just go all the way and drop it another $100 and enter the budget tablet market entirely, even if it extinguishes their profit margin. Getting the ecosystem to have traction is more important and only way they're gonna do that is by growing the RT user base. That's how Android was able to enter the tablet market.

With the Pro, MS's reason for going into hardware was because their OEM's screwed up. Instead of making Premium W8 devices, the OEM's stuck W8 on cheap laptops without touchscreens and killed the brand. The Surface Pro was a rebranding tool for them, attempting to rescue the brand and show the OEM's how to do it right. Once again execution was inconsistent and marketing sucked.

 

[spinedoc77]

Yea, but Balmer supposedly mentioned in his meetings with all employees last week plans for Surface RT 2. I think its DOA myself because there is no compelling reason to buy an MS product on the consumer side. No stand out feature or app. It's basically a me too device and not a very good one. I feel bad for the folks that bought the windows phone and the surface tablets because its basically flushing money down the drain while they wait to see if MS gets it right. By the time MS does get it right, your current products you purchased are obsolete. Windows Phone 7 is a perfect example.

God, I hope there is no RT2, I'm not sure why MS is perpetuating this atrocity of an error. I understand peoples complaints about the desktop being very jarring on a tablet/mobile platform, I really do, but what else was MS to do? RT will just dilute their market and provide yet another version of windows out there for consumers to slog through, really what's the purpose if my full windows tablet has Metro on it just like RT does?

I've said it before, MS FULL power should have been behind rethinking the desktop paradigm. Either replace it with Metro WHEN it was finished and ready for the market, or revamping the desktop itself to make sense in a mobile world without alienating desktop users.

 

[panzer06]

The Pro is actually very compelling. Ultrabook/tablet/small form factor PC rolled into a 2 pound device I can carry under my arm. Wacom digitizer. Access to the x86 ecosystem, instead of just cheap ARM software. Debate will continue once the Haswell version comes out.

RT at $500 sucks. At $350 it's on the edge of budget pricing. Personally I think they should just go all the way and drop it another $100 and enter the budget tablet market entirely, even if it extinguishes their profit margin. Getting the ecosystem to have traction is more important and only way they're gonna do that is by growing the RT user base. That's how Android was able to enter the tablet market.

With the Pro, MS's reason for going into hardware was because their OEM's screwed up. Instead of making Premium W8 devices, the OEM's stuck W8 on cheap laptops without touchscreens and killed the brand. The Surface Pro was a rebranding tool for them, attempting to rescue the brand and show the OEM's how to do it right. Once again execution was inconsistent and marketing sucked.

Not sure I agree with you. Any attempt by Microsoft to position their Windows Tablets in the same price range as an iPad is doomed to fail. Windows PC buyers won't pay premium pricing like a Mac buyer might.

Also, Windows takes so much space for the OS, they must start at 32GB and really need 64GB to make it work for any type of future application installation.

As to Windows 8 and touchscreens I don't think cheap non-touch screens killed the brand. It's a fact people just don't like change. Even if every $300-$500 laptop came with a touchscreen the novelty of all that reaching and swiping would wear off quick. Even person I know who has the more expensive touchscreen laptop or desktop stopped playing with it after a week or so. They went back to using a mouse and complaining about the missing start button.

I really think Microsoft just missed the boat by failing to push these devices to their existing base. Everyone has personally lost data or knows someone who has because of hard drive failures, data corruption or theft. Demonstrating Windows 8 backup and sync to the cloud along with photos, music and video syncing across devices could really have convinced Windows PC owners not to look a Apple or Android products that will not work as seamlessly as a Windows tablet (just don't mention 3rd party solutions). Apple loves to tout the robust closed Apple ecosystem. Microsoft has waaaay more PC customers. It's important they tap into this huge base and stop trying to be something they are not.

Cheers,

 

[spinedoc77]

The Pro is actually very compelling. Ultrabook/tablet/small form factor PC rolled into a 2 pound device I can carry under my arm. Wacom digitizer. Access to the x86 ecosystem, instead of just cheap ARM software. Debate will continue once the Haswell version comes out.

RT at $500 sucks. At $350 it's on the edge of budget pricing. Personally I think they should just go all the way and drop it another $100 and enter the budget tablet market entirely, even if it extinguishes their profit margin. Getting the ecosystem to have traction is more important and only way they're gonna do that is by growing the RT user base. That's how Android was able to enter the tablet market.

With the Pro, MS's reason for going into hardware was because their OEM's screwed up. Instead of making Premium W8 devices, the OEM's stuck W8 on cheap laptops without touchscreens and killed the brand. The Surface Pro was a rebranding tool for them, attempting to rescue the brand and show the OEM's how to do it right. Once again execution was inconsistent and marketing sucked.

The Pro 2 will be enticing, but I'm not convinced how much so. From what I read Haswell is only a 30% or so increase in battery life (please correct me if I'm wrong) so 30% of 4 hours isn't much to write home about. Secondly I believe they will need to keep the fan design, unless they throttle the cpu which I don't know how that will pan out. With Haswell I'll bet they keep the same thickness and weight as the Pro1, and it just won't be that compelling. Lastly will MS solve their scaling issues? Scaling is terrible on the high resolution of the Pro, and it makes the desktop insanely hard to use where it's quite easy to use on my lower resolution atom tablet.

I'm still holding out hope for the next atom chip, Baytrail. It's supposed to be pretty awesome, and considering how happy I am with Clovertrail I can't wait to see what Intel comes up with when their back is against the wall.

----------

Not sure I agree with you. Any attempt by Microsoft to position their Windows Tablets in the same price range as an iPad is doomed to fail. Windows PC buyers won't pay premium pricing like a Mac buyer might.

Also, Windows takes so much space for the OS, they must start at 32GB and really need 64GB to make it work for any type of future application installation.

As to Windows 8 and touchscreens I don't think cheap non-touch screens killed the brand. It's a fact people just don't like change. Even if every $300-$500 laptop came with a touchscreen the novelty of all that reaching and swiping would wear off quick. Even person I know who has the more expensive touchscreen laptop or desktop stopped playing with it after a week or so. They went back to using a mouse and complaining about the missing start button.

I really think Microsoft just missed the boat by failing to push these devices to their existing base. Everyone has personally lost data or knows someone who has because of hard drive failures, data corruption or theft. Demonstrating Windows 8 backup and sync to the cloud along with photos, music and video syncing across devices could really have convinced Windows PC owners not to look a Apple or Android products that will not work as seamlessly as a Windows tablet (just don't mention 3rd party solutions). Apple loves to tout the robust closed Apple ecosystem. Microsoft has waaaay more PC customers. It's important they tap into this huge base and stop trying to be something they are not.

Cheers,

I think a windows tablet would sell at an ipad price, just not the RT version. But I agree, MS just really misjudged their competition and who they were selling these tablets to.

 

[whiteboytrash]

Didn't offend, I was just trying to figure out your message. I don't have the gloomy 3-7% idea that you do, I see them cracking 15% at some point. It doesn't have to be a market leader, just make a profit. And I think that, with time, it will make an excellent addition to the "pillars of Microsoft" (or maybe supplement the Windows pillar).

If MS pays its own people to buy the product it could crack 15%.

That's a joke mind you

But they've already spent a billion on advertising this piece of plastic. They've paid developers to write apps for it...

..and still it could only inflict 1.5m of them on the market.

What does that tell you? If free, people still don't want them.

I'm not saying this is a bad device. But it's just not worth it for someone to drop their already excellent device and ecosystem. For a buyer to take that sort or leap of faith it needs to be offering something unparalleled in user experience.

It does not.

 

[Renzatic]

Yeah... Microsoft's gaming division owes a lot of their success to Sony's arrogance. ("The Playstation 3 will retail for 599 U.S. Dollars!")

Yeah, they really do.

...though I thought the PS3 came out at $699.

 

[tymaster50]

LOL microsoft. Nice try.