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

[0098386]

The thing is that's already the majority of consumers, even if they haven't switched yet. And as tablet software and hardware continues to improve the audience for them will grow even more. PCs certainly will not die, but they will likely decline into niche markets. The desktop especially.

I'd hardly say it will decline into a niche market. As these tablets do increase in popularity there will be more need for apps, more things to be made on these computers. These devices are made for content consumption. That's why there are more creative and technical studios popping up - to create that content.

Even Apple is bringing out a new desktop because parts of the pro market has moved away.

 

[iapplelove]

iPad king of the tablets

 

[Ochyandkaren]

keep believing that

Actually the majority of earthlings think any Microsoft product is better than Apple’s one.
Only people who have swathed, do not hold that thought.


Microsoft and Samsung are better known than Apple.
Just look at any corner of this round planet.

 

[Deadman64]

Me too. IMO it's the evolution of laptop computers.

+1, I think they shouldn't have released the RT version. It probably confused consumers.

When the 2nd gen comes out and they lower the price of the 1st gen pros I may pick one up.

 

[JGRE]

Not an Ultrabook. Although it's the inspiration for Intel's Ultrabook concept.

Perhaps not per Intel's definition but certainly the most ultra book today (until the new rMBP are released).

 

[CausticPuppy]

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

Especially if it could be hackintoshed.

 

[APlotdevice]

I'd hardly say it will decline into a niche market. As these tablets do increase in popularity there will be more need for apps, more things to be made on these computers. These devices are made for content consumption. That's why there are more creative and technical studios popping up - to create that content.

Compared to how it is now, "niche" is quite appropriate. The fact of the matter is that "consumers" will always far outnumber "creators". And it's not as though all forms of creativity are impossible on tablets even today. For instance music creation has become quite viable.

The whole reason Microsoft has been pushing their "modern" interface so desperately is because they know that if they don't manage to break into the mobile market, the majority of their current customer base will eventually vanish.

Even Apple is bringing out a new desktop because parts of the pro market has moved away.

Apple has always enjoyed a disproportionately high percentage of the creative market.

 

[powers74]

Experience

I actually know someone who got one... Although, he didn't pay for it, the school he works for did. He's not super impressed with it.

The way I see it, it's still the same tablet product Microsoft has been trying to peddle for over a decade now; Everything To Everybody. The form factor has just changed a little. It's going to be a diluted, scattered experience every time.

 

[BornAgainMac]

They should rebrand it Xbox Mobile or something. Maybe sell it as a tablet gaming rig. Office just isn't something that sells tablets.

 

[albusseverus]

So that's 4,000 actual sales, when you take out Microsoft employees and tech reviewers.

 

[Tiger8]

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.

Blackberry phone sales were lackluster after the iPhone launched...
Blackberry playbook sales were lackluster since day 1...

And now look at... wait a minute, they are still mediocore

 

[Nungster]

The problem though is that Microsoft was late to the party with tablets - and with a low marketshare as a result of this they won't have many developers making apps for them. With no apps, few will buy the tablet. With few buying it, it will have a low marketshare... and so the paradox continues.

Good or bad, I greatly agree that it is a time to market issue here. When iPad debuted, it was revolutionary. Everyone envisioned a tablet computer as being a convertible. iPad disposed of the physical keyboard and still is a booming success. MSFT creates surface, and brings back the keyboard in hopes to distinguish itself, but people just aren't interested.

 

[rdlink]

So then Macbooks were junk too until a few years ago since they didn't sell well? Same could be said of Macs in general for about 30 years.

Well, first of all you're trying to build an analogy where one doesn't really exist.

But I'll bite a little. First, understand that I moved from Windows to Apple in 2008, and I am now all in. Honestly, there was nothing compelling to me on the Mac side, even after OS X was shipped until Leopard. Before that I was unimpressed and uninspired by OS X.

But the difference here is that Apple brought a new, compelling and fun product to the market in the iPod. It got peoples' attention, and started to pull back the curtain to a lot of dyed in the wool Windows users who had never even considered Apple products. It showed them that perhaps computing and electronics didn't need to be kludgy and stoic.

Along comes Leopard, at just about the perfect time. People who are now starting to flock to the Apple stores because of the iPod are seeing how cool and easy computers can really be.

Then comes iPhone, and wow! The momentum builds.

A couple of years later, iPad. Each of these products pivots off of the others.

Now, let's look at the Surface. Aside from all of the technical downsides of it, and Microsoft's insistence on force feeding its large customer base a whole new UI experience on the familiar desktop that they've been using for 20 years, the reaction of the user is, "Well, I can get this "familiar" OS tablet (that's not really so familiar after all, since MS insisted on making everything so "revolutionarily different"). Ho-hum.

Or I can keep using this intuitive, fun, easy-to-use, stable, quality built tablet that is as familiar as all of the other devices I've come to love (as opposed to tolerate)."

That's why MS went so far out of their way to try to portray the Surface in their commercials as this hip, fun, happening tablet, when in fact the biggest selling point for it was that it was supposed to be the best of both worlds: A tablet like MS should have produced ten years ago, melded with the familiar, no-nonsense, "get my work done" ecosystem of MS. Problem was, it (especially the RT) was really none of those things. It wasn't cool. It wasn't familiar. And it wasn't a no nonsense business machine. By the time the Pro came out people had pretty much tuned out.

Their advertising? It was just lipstick on a pig.

So yes, the Surface is %$#*.

 

[BaldiMac]

The Surface is all the mistakes that Apple avoided with the iPad.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

These devices are made for content consumption….

Even Apple is bringing out a new desktop because parts of the pro market has moved away.

On the first part: fallacy. Tablets are not made for a particular purpose. It's just how many consumers use them, same as they use or used their desktop and laptops. Their is a plethora of content creating apps for tablets of all iOS flavors. RT even has Office bundled in. The iPad is the #1 business tablet. Dare I say employees are not using them to consume content.

On the second part: You have it backwards. Apple is bringing out an updated desktop because the MP has languished for a few years, not because the pro market was moving away. The pro market that moved away did so because the MP languished and also, in the case of some video editors, FCP X tipped the can.

 

[opeter]

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

 

[whiteboytrash]

I was thinking..."Yes!!! Now we'll finally get Office for iPad" then I read the last line.

MS would surely sell millions of copies of office if they ever woke up.

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!

 

[Rogifan]

How many people use Surface pro as a tablet? Basically every Microsoft promotional shot and commercial showed Surface in landscape orientation with they keyboard attached and kickstand in use. It doesn't come across as a device I'd use to read a book, watch a movie or play a game on. And lets face it most people use tablets as consumption devices. Maybe Microsoft would have more success if they got corporations to replace their Dell/HP/Lenovo laptops with Surface tablets but I don't see that happening when most businesses are just now upgrading to Windows 7. Where I work a lot of people still aren't upgraded to Windows 7 and our PC lifecycle is 4 years.

 

[thefourthpope]

ouch

 

[spinedoc77]

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!

How would you use Office without a keyboard?

 

[thefourthpope]

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!

Keyboards are important to typing, that's all.
As for Office (some version) on the iPad: so I can natively work with the document files that dominate professional life.

 

[scarred]

Except it really isn't a #$%& product.

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.

 

[spinedoc77]

How many people use Surface pro as a tablet? Basically every Microsoft promotional shot and commercial showed Surface in landscape orientation with they keyboard attached and kickstand in use. It doesn't come across as a device I'd use to read a book, watch a movie or play a game on. And lets face it most people use tablets as consumption devices. Maybe Microsoft would have more success if they got corporations to replace their Dell/HP/Lenovo laptops with Surface tablets but I don't see that happening when most businesses are just now upgrading to Windows 7. Where I work a lot of people still aren't upgraded to Windows 7 and our PC lifecycle is 4 years.

Yeah it's a good point. I use my atom tablet as a tablet 99.9% of the time, but the couple of months I owned a surface Pro I only used it as a tablet 30% or so of the time. It was just too heavy, thick, and ran out of battery too quickly, and the scaling on it was so awful with that high resolution that I got sick of trying to press tiny little buttons. The alternative issue is that when I did set it up as a laptop it was a poor laptop.

 

[conebbs]

I went to a educational tech conference in San Antonio (ISTE) and they gave 10,000 Surfaces away. Free. My wife and I both got one. I opened mine, and after my wife saw me set it up, she said she would never open hers. It is terrible. Every time I turn it on, it has updates, or need to reboot because of updates. The battery is terrible on it as well.

 

[BaldiMac]

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

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.