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Microsoft's Surface Book Ads Borrow Music From Apple to Focus on Things a Mac 'Just Can’t Do'
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In comparative advertising you only punch upwards. Apple did it with Mac vs PC to try and steal market share from the more dominant Windows. Microsoft putting these ads out is great news for Apple because it means they have felt the impact of the Mac. Remember when the Mac was 2% of the PC market?
This is good news for Mac buyers too as the Surface is a compelling machine and any pressure for Apple to innovate is welcome. I'm hoping we see something drastic like "Mac OS 11" sooner rather than later.
This is good news for Mac buyers too as the Surface is a compelling machine and any pressure for Apple to innovate is welcome. I'm hoping we see something drastic like "Mac OS 11" sooner rather than later.
Microsoft has a point. Yes the ipad pro is more portable than a touchscreen laptop but I also need my Macbook pro handy to get any serious work done. Makes the whole business cumbersome and prohibitively expensive. I would like to have some touch functionality on my daily driver.
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The surface book truly is a remarkable device and probably the best product Microsoft has put out, in terms of sheer innovation a capability in the last decade. I honestly feel like they did to the notebook what APple did to the smartphone. Unfortunately I don't think there is much of a market in notebooks anymore. Had this come out five years ago I think it would have taken the world by storm (even despite the blunder of Windows RT). Lord knows I would have loved this in Vet school when we were required to own a god awful touch screen HP laptop that sounded good on paper, but in practice was a loud, heavy, bloated piece of garbage running touch screen applications in an OS that had no business running touch screen anything.
In short, this line of devices is leagues ahead of any iPad in terms of what it can do, but I think it came to market way too late to create the impact it needs to create to be truly successful.
In short, this line of devices is leagues ahead of any iPad in terms of what it can do, but I think it came to market way too late to create the impact it needs to create to be truly successful.
Judging by people's positive responses to the surface book, that day has already come. While surface pro evolved into the book, the iPad evolved into a larger iPad with a pen.
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That's apples choice, not microsofts.
These ad's are so cringe worthy. What the hell MS?! I will give MS that Surface Book is one of the nicest things to come out of them in awhile, which isn't saying much. But, if I were an engineer, and wanted to purchase something on electrical engineering, aesthetics, and reliability I would definitely get a Macbook Pro just based off these pics:
Surface Book
Macbook Pro
Eww at the Surfacebook Pro layout. Thankfully the Mac Can't Do that! And, no thanks on touching my screen. Having smudges, and smears all over is not visually appealing to anyone using a laptop. That doesn't add anything to the experience besides adding cleaning time.
LOL. Just mute it when you are seeing your show.
Surface Book
Macbook Pro
Eww at the Surfacebook Pro layout. Thankfully the Mac Can't Do that! And, no thanks on touching my screen. Having smudges, and smears all over is not visually appealing to anyone using a laptop. That doesn't add anything to the experience besides adding cleaning time.
LOL. Just mute it when you are seeing your show.
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On the plus side, this is (finally) a decent ad from Microsoft that illustrates a valid point.
On the minus side, it's probably a slow news day such that MacRumors need to post this as a front page item.
Although I am not getting a Surface I encourage competition. Microsoft is a much better company today than the horrendous thing that existed back in 99/2000 . Options are good for everyone.
Its funny how Microsoft compares itself to Apple (not sure why since they are the biggest fish in the sea), when back at the start of the millennium Microsoft looked at Apple as if it was a homeless man in need of kindness and care.
Its funny how Microsoft compares itself to Apple (not sure why since they are the biggest fish in the sea), when back at the start of the millennium Microsoft looked at Apple as if it was a homeless man in need of kindness and care.
Where I live, they only started selling Surface Book in the last few weeks. Based on online reviews, I was starting to lean toward buying one (it would have been my first Windows PC purchase in ten years) until I saw the sticker price. My goodness! For that kind of price, I should hope it would kick iPad's butt into the next zip code.
QFT
Except, of course that just as I'm about to do something about it, I remember those things run Windows, thus ending whatever consideration I was giving to the possibility.
Not sure about "prohibitively" - plenty of people out there will get an iPad and a MacBook, and its all win for Apple when they do. You also have to offset that against the fact that, with iPad and MacBook, you're getting two, independently usable computers. The SurfaceBook is significantly more expensive than a broadly comparable MacBook, so you're not getting the tablet functionality for nothing. Finally, there's the big question: Will Microsoft's one-size-fits all OS come up with software that's equally usable in laptop and tablet mode, or is Apple's policy of having separate systems but working on seamless data sharing the best answer?
...because they've settled for a middling integrated GPU plus an (expensive) discrete GPU option, whereas Apple seem to be waiting for the appropriately-powered Skylake parts with Iris Pro graphics.
(Market share graph)
Couple of things to consider:
(1) That's unit shipments. Android market share includes a lot of low-end models whereas Apple's sales are all mid-to-high end, high margin phones.
(2) That's % of market - if the market is growing then your sales could be increasing even if your market share is flat (and again, some of the growth may be at the low end which Apple aren't interested in).
I really was hyped when Microsoft announced their new products. But after all... it's still Windows. The store is horrible. System restarts/updates almost every day, the new phones crash all the time. I'm sure it'll get better over time... but I'm waiting for 6 years now and nothing really happens.
I still can't understand why people insist that marketshare is the point of releasing a product. If I'm capturing 80%+ of the profits in a market, while moving less than 20% of total units, why am I supposed to give a **** about the unit shipments?
I have an ipad air too. To get proper pencil functionality I'd need to fork out $750 for the pro- at the same time I am interested in getting a new macbook pro. This is what I mean by "prohibitively expensive". As I said before, I could use touch functionality on my daily driver and it's annoying to me to fumble between two different devices (ipad air/macbook pro) because while the ipad is great at consuming media every time I need work done ios isn't there yet.
The point was about Microsoft, if they are really that desperate to do comparative advertising and whether the company is sinking into insignificance with $100b in the bank, because of the failure of Windows Phone OS. I think Microsoft is in deep trouble. When you lose a monopoly to which you owe most of your success, than what remains usually isn't a very competitive company.
The PC market has had its worst year ever