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Is Microsoft's Price Model For the Surface Justifiable?
colinneagle writes "A blog post contending that Microsoft's decision to match Apple's iPad pricing on its Surface tablet will hurt its chances in the market has brought out some negative comments from readers who seem to like the Surface tablet. I was kind of surprised by this, as I and other bloggers seem to agree that making the fully keyboard-equipped Surface tablet roughly $120 more expensive than the iPad kind of negates the purpose — to build steam by appealing to those in the market for a cheaper tablet. Also, I've yet to see an argument that justifies pricing the Surface competitively with the iPad, so I figured I would bring the question to Slashdot: Is Microsoft's pricing for the Surface tablet justified?"
As we've seen time and time again, people are simply willing to pay more for Microsoft products than Apple products.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Nuff said
Touchpad!
Then yes, it's worth an extra buck-twenty. What good is a cheaper device that I can't do my work on? That's just a toy.
Zune II / Surface whatever. They will be discounting these things below cost within a few months.
Generally, people don't like Microsoft products. They don't choose to use Windows, it is what is forced down their throats at the work place-- so running same at home is path of least resistance. Since Surface gains nothing from this dynamic, it will be purchased by the 10 Windows fan boys who constantly shill on /., and that is probably about it.
What does it cost them to build per unit, what's the R&D costs and what profit margin do they want?
The problem with the PC industry is that a lot of OEMs went super cheap, with razor thin margins. Making it up in software bundles and volume. This is not sustainable. Hopefully Microsoft got the message and pricing within their costs.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
"Is it priced smartly?" is probably a better question. What could be 'just' or 'unjust' about Surface pricing?
If there are enough people willing to throw a ton of money at a product then they're doing a good job pricing their products. Nobody asks if Apple products are expensive. They sell like crazy so the price works. If anything, Apple should charge more for their products until they've maximized their profit supply curve (they've probably extrapolated this already).
All this said, do I think that Microsoft has a hope in hell selling to the niche high en crowd? No, but that being said, I thought the Xbox was a boondoggle as well, and look where that got them.
Bye!
PHB's sometimes need to be bopped over the head with the harsh reality of very poor sales before they admit they are not the center of the universe.
Table-ized A.I.
They can probably justify it, but I won't pay it. If they beat the iPad by $100 or included the keyboard at the same price, maybe.
The purpose of Surface is not to sell, it's to convince MS's investors that they are keeping up with the rest of the market. I don't think anybody seriously thinks it is a competitor to the iPad, or even to the Droid-based iPad knockoffs out there. It's just this thing, you know?
I find the device lacking in the screen department. It is a low res 720P screen with 16:9 AR. It's not a good device to use as a reader or to create any content due to this. If the device clearly outclassed the iPad then it might be worth it to me at 500 with the keyboard. Now it looks like a me too device only with a lower quality overall.
You're asking Slashdot for a Apple vs Microsoft comparison on a product none of us have used? Well that's surely going to be reasonable and fact based discussion.
Everyone keeps talking about the iPad price as if that's the holiday price. Apple have a special event on the 23rd (i.e. in six days) where they're releasing 24 new variants on the iPad. At *this* point we'll be able to see how the iPad and Surface offerings stack up against each other
"Is Microsoft's pricing for the Surface tablet justified?"
It might be. The tablet is a combination of hardware and software. If it turns out that windows8 provides superior "something" than iOS or android, then the surface might be worth what microsoft says it does. But who can tell at this point? As far as I know no one have had any experience with windows8+surface.
I understood this to be the ARM device that _cannot_ run Windows applications (only Metro apps).
No, Surface runs WinRT, the ARM version of Windows 8 which will only Metro apps which don't take advantage of native x86 code.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
using the word justified seems to take away from the fact that there was a cost to develop and build it. Wouldn't we have to know those costs before we can say "justified"? How about asking is it worth it instead?
Maybe they priced it so high so that OEMs don't get pi**ed even more?
Just saying...
Free Market + Capitalism: Healthy competition drives prices down and quality up
How many vendors provide iOS based tablets? ... One
How many vendors provide Windows based tablets? ... One
How many vendors provide Android based tablets? ... Too many to count, but Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Samsung, etc off the top of my head
Given these facts, which tablet(s) will have the highest quality and the lowest prices as time moves forward?
Economics is fun.
The Surface Pro is supposed to be a full-blown PC, capable of running software that runs on Windows 7, from what I've been reading.
I'll buy one as soon as I can get a 7-8 inch tablet running Windows 8 for about $200-250.
"The price of a thing is what the thing will bring." You can set a price anywhere you want, but it is up to the customers to decide whether they are willing to pay the price.
So, now, who wants a Surface? How does Surface fit in to the tablet market?
Apple made the first non-sucky tablet, and they reaped huge first-mover advantage, which is still paying off for them today. Related, they have network effect: everyone made apps for iPad because all the customers bought iPads, and customers bought iPads (in part) because of the rich selection of apps. Additionally, Apple did a great job on the user experience, and the quality is excellent. So you put all this together and Apple can command a premium price.
Along comes Android. Now you can get quite nice tablets for $200, and you can install any application you like. You can use multiple app stores if you like. So Android is both the low-cost solution and the more-free solution.
Along comes Microsoft. They are very, very late to the party. First mover advantage? Definitely not. Network effect, vast library of apps? No; they need to build a new stable of C# Windows 8 apps, from scratch. More-free? No; they are copying the Apple model, where the customer must go to the official app store. (And Microsoft is also copying the idea of raking a 30% commission on each sale. App developers tolerate this of Apple... will they tolerate it of Microsoft?)
So... low-cost? Definitely not. The Surface is being priced like an iPad. Customers are willing to pay a premium price for an iPad, but I cannot see any reason why customers would see enough value in a Surface to justify a premium price.
IMHO, Microsoft's best bet is to make the Surface integrate very smoothly into a Windows network. It should connect smoothly to Windows servers, it should have a good email client that can talk to Exchange servers, that sort of thing. That can carve out a niche in the business market, where incidentally a higher price doesn't hurt so much. But they are so late to the party, that many companies are already standardized on iPad. (And all the C-level executives want iPads and already have them.)
In short, at this price level, the Surface will be a niche product at best, and very possibly the next Zune.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Then yes, it's worth an extra buck-twenty. What good is a cheaper device that I can't do my work on? That's just a toy.
well, then it's ~300 bucks more expensive(surface pro which runs your work programs is maybe a thousand bucks+, I'm unsure if the pricing was yet announced.. it wont hit the shelves this year).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This is why techies tend to be crap at marketing (that's a complement to techies by the way, I'm a techie).
The purpose of the Surface isn't just to make a profit on each unit (which at this price it probably is), it's to help position Windows 8/RT/Metro or whatever it's called.
The market for cheap tablets is thoroughly occupied by Android. Most people I know, even techies, think of Android tablets as "like an iPad, but cheaper, and therefore not as good". The perception (right or wrong) is that if you want the best you buy an iPad, if you want cheap and cheerful you by an Android tablet. There is no competition at the premium end, it's iPad or nothing. The perception is that the only reason you'd buy Android is because you don't have the money for an iPad.
Pricing the Surface at the same point as the iPad sends out a message to consumers that says "we think the Surface is as good as the iPad". Microsoft clearly want to position Windows 8/RT on tablets as a premium product, it doesn't want to compete with Android, it wants to compete with Apple and iOS.
That won't stop other manufacturers from making cheaper tablets, but Microsoft are setting the bar high. If someone else (e.g. Acer) make a cheap WinRT tablet it will be seen as an affordable version of a premium product, not a "cheap" product.
Paul Leader
The iPhone, whizzy as it was, had a massive initial price tag. I blanched at it and stuck with a less whizzy phone. I'm not sorry I did. Now I have the money to buy any smart phone I choose, but I'll still not spring for one more expensive than I want. Same goes for pads - Android rules the roost for the budget minded and will ultimately dictate the market through shear numbers -- same way cloned DOS PCs dictated the way of the present desktop. Microsoft, again, do not know their own history and how they got where they are today.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There's been no pricing announcement yet for Pro but it'll be $1k+ based on the pricing for the RT based Surface and it won't be available until at least late Q1 13.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It almost seems like a religious argument: "How dare Microsoft price their hardware to compete with Apple?".
I'm *still* waiting for a great tablet to come out. I was excited for the Ipad until spending time with my girlfriend's. I loved the Playbook, but the form factor wasn't right for me and it didn't gain traction. I like the Samsung Slate, but it's heavy and the battery life is terrible, additionally the ui isn't great.
If Microsoft can offer me a tablet with good battery life, a grown up interface, a non crippled web browser, and *hopefully* more functionality than the Ipad, I would say they're justified in pricing above Apple, not in line with them. If they don't, I'll just keep waiting, someone is bound to get it right eventually.
I thought Microsoft surface was a giant table that you could play board games on.
What happened to that thing, and why are they calling this thing surface?
iPad 16GB no keyboard -- $499
Surface 32GB no keyboard -- $499
Advantage Surface
iPad 32GB no keyboard -- $599
Surface 32GB with touch keyboard -- $599
Advantage Surface
iPad 64GB no keyboard -- $699
Surface 64GB with touch keyboard -- $699
And the released Surface includes Office 2013RT.
Advantage Surface
well, then it's ~300 bucks more expensive(surface pro which runs your work programs is maybe a thousand bucks+, I'm unsure if the pricing was yet announced.. it wont hit the shelves this year).
Good point - the hell with the thing then. Personally, I use the biggest, heaviest-ass laptop I can get my hands on as a desktop replacement/traveling companion, and I add a full external keyboard and mouse. I hate poking at tablets, or tapping on chicklet-keys on a mini-keyboard.
Microsoft is acting like they number one in the mobile market, but the fact is they're not even in the game yet or even a player in the sub-mobile markets and they're making some huge mistakes. I've been a .NET developer for 16 years and I'm seriously pulling for them, but the last 6 months have been full of Microsoft making ridiculous decisions. I almost think that Google and Apple paid top executives at Microsoft to screw up this Windows Phone 8 launch as badly as humanly possible.
Microsoft refuses to release the beta or alpha of the Windows Phone 8 SDK to developers unless they pay a $99 fee and even then the SDK is released on a lottery basis. Come on, seriously? MS needs people to write software for for WP8 NOW, not later. So at the very least if they're going to act like they're relevant and charge developers $99 for the privilege to write software for their currently-non-existant device with 0% market share they should at least give those developers the SDK... which leads to my next complaint:
$99 to develop for a device with 0% market share? Microsoft, are you joking? You should be begging developers to write software for WP8 and maybe een giving them a full copy of VS 2012, bot charging them $99. Big mistake.
The Nokia Lumia 900 is a heavy brick. Cool specs and everything, but it's a brick.
And lastly...
Nokia gave AT&T exclusive rights to provide cellular service to the Lumia 900. Is this a joke? Every other mobile maker is going away from exclusivity. Maybe MS could get away with this is WP8 and the Lumia 900 were some world-changing revolutionary device, but come on. WP8 is cool, it's got some great stuff, but it's not anywhere near the same as when Apple released the iPHone in 1997 and gave AT&T exclusivity.
Microsoft has some great stuff going for it: an awesome Visual Studio IDE that blows away XCode and Eclipse and they have a huge foothold in the business market. Tons of businesses have invested heavily is MS infrastructure and developer talent and would be much more likely to do mobile dev projects if Microsoft could get their mobile strategy even 1/2 right.
But as a developer with a passion for mobile dev I'm obviously pretty discouraged about their mobile strategy in the immediate future right now.
Microsoft can not run down prices and survive at the bottom in the tablet space. So they are "adding" features to make their tablets closer to the laptop/desktop feature set or should we say usability model. They will advertise their system runs an office application suite or parts of it and have desktop like capabilities. Apple can't really say this. Therefore you see why Microsoft is pricing their system up so high IMO.
will it fly? I doubt it but they are a great marketing company so we'll see.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Steve Ballmer simply multiplied the price by the bazillion units the powerpoint slide says will ship and wow, it just makes Microsoft's market cap way bigger than Apple's. So obviously the price is justified.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The people saying the surface has to undercut the ipad are missing the point... Microsoft's strategy is to anchor a higher price for windows rt tablets...
So the oems can undercut the price without being over their own costs...(Which they would pressure microsoft about...)
The Surface has a bigger screen with significantly lower resolution (that's a bad thing). The Full OS takes up 12 GB of the 32 GB available, compared to approximately 2GB on an iOS device. Office is a preview edition, and is one of the few applications even available for the platform.
Even if is is for the 15 days of being early adopter.
They offer a product for a price, and people take it or leave it.
Shallow tech journalists keep insisting on putting the Kindle Fire HD into tablet comparisons, I've already seen them doing it with Surface. For what it is I'm sure the Fire HD is nice, but it most definitely isn't a full-featured tablet to compete with top Android or (soon) Windows tablets.
maybe we should ask the 50 people who actually buy one. :)
I can get one of these or 2 Nexus 7... the choice is clear. It's a shame, I was really looking forward to purchasing a surface, they seem to have done a lot of things right. I'm not even gonna look at the price when the full blown win8 comes, it's gonna be the same as a small car.
You can if you have a MacBook Air !!! Never, ever buy Rev Zero on any product or you will pay big time.
The pricing revealed to me that this isn't intended to be an iPad killer. It's meant to be a paradigm shift in PC form factor and interface. When you think of it less like a competitor of the iPad and the first iteration of the future of the PC then it isn't that bad. Although - the RT limitation of running only app store apps (when we can't even see what apps are available yet) completely sapped me of interest in that model at that price. $250 less for the RT and I might have still been interested.
When I look at the surface, I see a tablet with the screen and SoC of a $400 tablet (iPad 2 or Asus Transformer Prime), bundled with software (Office instead of iWork) that costs $30 in Apple's app store. So in my mind, it should cost $430. That said, people must be ordering it, because the basic version is sold out and new orders are shipping later. Of course, Microsoft could just have thrown up that statement to attract attention. Even if they have sold many, we don't know how many. We're just going to have to wait 90 days and look at MS's financials.
You are a victim of the amazingly poor MS marketing. Imagine how many people are going to be pissed when they buy thing thing with your assumptions.
Well try do this with any other over priced tablet or even a junk android one from China, A Microsoft exec has turned his into a Skate Board "windows sk8', really shows the value of materials used in construction and its solid engineering. Coolest thing i've seen today actually !
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iPad 16GB no keyboard - $399. Surface does not have retina display.
Microsoft compiled their apps for different architectures before, I don't think it would be *that* hard for them to do it again.
I don't see where you get that it's $120 more than the iPad. It's exactly the same price as the iPad. If you get the extra keyboard then yeah, that adds a bit to the price. I preordered my last night and I can't wait for October 26th. Christmas is coming on Halloween this year.
Fta, it looks like the surface purchased with the keyboard is priced the same as an iPad, not more. Without it is $100 cheaper.
The iPad has apps, but as long as the surface has the 5 or so I'll actually use that's fine. You don't need a giant app store...it help, but all you need are the apps people want.
The iPad has a better display, but for anyone who isn't comparing them you won't notice. My tablet won't look awful after staring at my work monitor and cell phone all day.
They may not pull anyone away from an iPad, but that's not who they're targeting. They're aiming for functionality in a work environment over playing angry birds in hi resolution.
I'm an android fan myself, but I'd put the surface over the iPad if I need something I'll bring to work.
"when Apple released the iPHone in 1997"
Ballmer's lost decade is messing with your measure of time.
Companies produced Android tablets which competed with the ipad on price, they didn't sell...
Windows RT is mostly in the same boat, it is a new entrant to the tablet market but is known in other market segments and has relatively few tablet specific apps.
MS are hoping that the windows brand will sell tablets and encourage developers to make apps, however it may just do the opposite... people tolerate windows on the desktop largely because its already ubiquitous, but they are unlikely to put up with it on a tablet when the ipad is the benchmark.
I also suspect that the windows brand will backfire in other ways, users will buy it expecting to run their existing software and then be disappointed when they can't...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Once again, Microsoft snatches defeat from the jaws of victory - sort of defeat in demouth all over again
I've tried several Office packages on Android. they work well and have mostly the right features (I'm addicted to stylesheets and outlines, ymmv), but their import/export filters are not up to par.
If Office RT supplies 1- the features 2- the stability like the others, and adds 3- perfect import/export, then most professionals on Office will gladly pay the same or a bit more than for any other tablet.
Consumers not hooked on Office probably won't though, and probably shouldn't. Android has most everything needed for content consumption, at half the price.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
no
Microsoft has turned their social marketing dept up to 11 on this release. They even did a Reddit AMA and gamed the shit out of it with hundreds of accounts only a month or two old. They are spending money to try and emulate the Apple fan-atacism that has worked so well for Apple.
"A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'" - DNA
Rather than ask the straightforward question "Is the Surface priced too high?", you reworded it into a clumsier question so that Betteridge's law of headlines would yield the answer you wanted.
If they price it out of the market and nobody buys it
They can claim it was too good for the market and we didn't deserve their brilliant product anyway
That way they can say they didn't fail
The market failed to recognize their brilliance
Then the product managers can all silently resign and go work for Amazon on the next Kindle
I don't want to be horrible, but I think you are thinking like a techie :-) (actually you will probably like that :-)
The perception is that the only reason you'd buy Android is because you don't have the money for an iPad.
This was at least partly true before, but seems to have changed with the Samsung lawsuit. This caused a massive increase in sales of top end Galaxy tablets. The reason seems to be that Android has finally been understood as "a tablet OS like iPad, not a computer OS like I can't use" and at the same time "so good Apple had to sue to compete". Plenty of people are also going for the Galaxy Note and Nexus 7, for example, through choice.
Pricing the Surface at the same point as the iPad sends out a message to consumers that says "we think the Surface is as good as the iPad". Microsoft clearly want to position Windows 8/RT on tablets as a premium product, it doesn't want to compete with Android, it wants to compete with Apple and iOS.
This is the same mistake as has been made by HP. The problem is there's another message here; "professional computing platform; not simple system for people to do what they want". This message is reinforced by the fact that Microsoft Office is there and Gmail and Google Maps are not.
That won't stop other manufacturers from making cheaper tablets, but Microsoft are setting the bar high. If someone else (e.g. Acer) make a cheap WinRT tablet it will be seen as an affordable version of a premium product, not a "cheap" product.
If you look up prices, you will see that other manufacturer's Windows tablets are actually coming in as more expensive. This looks like there are major design flaws in Windows 8.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Another issue is that Microsoft wants to sell software not tablets. If they sell the premium, expensive tablet, that leaves plenty of room for their customers (who are computer builders) to sell cheaper versions or even their own premium versions. If they sold their tablets as cheaply as possible, it would be much harder to sell software to their normal customers. That might push their customers to Android, which is exactly what they want to avoid.
Apple is a consumer company. They sell direct to ordinary people. Microsoft is not (at least not primarily). They sell to businesses. It may make sense for Microsoft to enter the consumer market here, as Apple has been the only ones selling their own solution for both the software and the hardware. This allows Microsoft to compete with both Apple and Android. It would not make sense for Microsoft to only sell integrated solutions, as their main strength is selling to builders (the Android space).
Dollar for dollar I'd rather buy an iPad than a Surface (my iPad 1 is showing its age). If Surface was considerably cheaper I'd probably buy a Surface. I was rather excited by the Surface until I heard its ridiculously high price.
Including a keyboard isn't compelling enough to justify the price match with an iPad.
What they are looking to do is create a device that epitomizes what a Win8 tablet should be. Microsoft has plenty of OEM vendors who are willing to market the cheap stuff, which allows Microsoft to be left as the "premium" manufacturer in the public eye. Because of this, they don't actually have to sell a ton of Surface tablets for the whole thing to be considered a success. They just need to create a high benchmark to build interest in Win8 tablets, and let the OEM guys fill out the price points.
Without the Surface, Microsoft would basically be relying on the hopes that an OEM partner will come out with their own high-end device that gains market traction. Something that really hasn't happened in the past, and they know it. They don't want Win8 to be ruined because the only devices running it are cheap crappy knockoffs of iPads. With the surface, it allows Microsoft to shift the blame of failed devices to the OEM's, and away from Win8. If HP releases CrapTablet8 and gets bad press, Microsoft can just point to the Surface and say "It may be a bad product, but it has nothing to do with Win8."
Of course, this all depends on the Surface actually living up to it's hype, and not being a crap product running a crap OS in the first place.
Surface requires a different API so all those Win32 apps will need far more then a recompile - they need a redesign.
Don't think it matters whether it runs native x86 apps. Most of the recent business apps I have seen run are browser based. .net apps.
BTW, Some Windows 8 RT also runs
No Photoshop but there are several .net based alternatives
NOPE... It's not x86, its ARM, so this is like the old days of MIPS/PowerPC/DecAlpha running NT. Except the Alpha did have !FX32 but of course the ARM won't so I'm sure you can rack up a great game of solitaire on there...
And apparently the mail client in Win8 sucks sooooo.. I don't know what you'd use it for.. Power Point player...?
I like your optimism, but as a former PowerPC & Dec Alpha users I can tell you don't hold your breath. Or expect all kinds of limitations. And naturally once the Dec Alpha started to really pick up steam it was killed.
x86 is the only CPU MS is capable of supporting.
that's the toy
Win 8 will be a winner for Microsoft in the future. Imagine a x86 4 core 3ghz, retina display, light and thin (like a macbook air) where you can detach the keyboard and continue with just the "screen" to read a newspaper or watch netflix in the couch. Only one very powerful machine, running all legacy software, and new Metro apps. Imagine million of these devices sold per year by all PC manufacturers. a Winner.
Much easier to reduce the price than raise it. start slightly high, adjust to the market.
The price is important. I've not bought an iPad for the reason it is too expensive for what it is and what it does. The Windows Tablet just did the same thing. Why would I want to drop the money on a iPad or the Surface when the $250 Nexus or Galaxy does everything I need it to do? None of them replace the gaming computer, nor will any of them replace my work computer which runs my CAD programs, web development stuff and desktop publishing suite. All any of the tablets are good for are surfing the internet, doing email, playing games and some productivity for programs that don't require intensive processor power. Sure I've used my Nexus to work on my manuals but its just been the text part of various sections when i am on the bus. The tablets are a long way from replacing desk tops and laptops. All they have done is just replaced the Netbooks.
Only true for third-party apps. First-party software, such as Explorer, IE, Powershell, etc. are all Win32 apps and are included on Windows RT (and therefore Surface RT). Some native APIs, such as DirectX, are also supported for third-party apps on Windows RT.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
The problem is that they need to prove they're premium, which most will question. In pictures the build looks better than average Microsoft products, but overall doesn't look comparable to the iPad. Since they are using off-the-shelf components throughough they can't match the iPad in any spec (low resolution, worse battery life, heavier, etc) that depends on tight integration and optimization. I don't think it'll end up competing with Android devices in price, but I'd be surprised if the Surface sells much outside the dedicated fanboy community at their iPad-matching price.
They need to be somewhere in the middle, with more like a $100-150 premium over an Android tablet and some seriously killer applications to compensate for at least half of that premium. It's a tall order, but it isn't impossible. The Pro version will probably fall flat on it's face, no matter what they do. It will have some very limited niche uses in some small industry segments, but that's about it. If they can get the battery life up, price down, and developers interested in it, it has a small shot at becoming a common tablet used in medical settings, but it will be a steep challenge since the iPad has already made major inroads.
They're really late to the game and that's going to make it a lot harder to break in. Then again, stranger things have happened, but the only time it has happened for them in recent memory was when they made their competition look archaic (Xbox). I don't think this is the case with the Surface, so they're probably in for some serious disappointment.
To be fair, it runs Metro apps AND Office 2013 Home/Student as a "normal" application which is pre-installed (beta, with a free download of the RTM version when it arrives). However it is worth noting that the license for Home/Student is ONLY for Home/Student use unless they change the license for 2013
"... licensed only for non-commercial use by households. It cannot be used for any commercial, nonprofit, or revenue-generating activities, by schools or academic institutions, or by any government organization."
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/office-2010-frequently-asked-questions-HA101674631.aspx
compared to the ipad: same price with the same no keyboard.
compared to the ipad: how much is support for peripherals worth to you?
compared to the ipad: being able to take files on and off of the device with a typical usb stick.
compared to the ipad: being able to run any program or game from the last 30 years of windows
compared to the ipad: directx
compared to the ipad: actually being a traditional node on any network
compared to the ipad: a keyboard. wow.
compared to the ipad: dockable to additional ports/memory/battery
compared to the ipad: anyone can program anything without restrictions
compared to the ipad: available with a proper core i5 ivy bridge that's faster than a ten-year-old desktop (the ipad isn't)
Surface (and Windows 8 in general) is about as "free" as Android when it comes to apps. The process of unlocking Win8 for sideloading consists of "type a command into Powershell" (which is included with Windows RT, incidentally). After that you can grab all the .APPX files you want, from the web or from an alternate store or whatever, and install them. Additionally, unlike on prety much any commercial Android distribution, the ability to "get root" (run as Administrator) on Surface is built-in, just as it is on other Windows devices.
I'll grant you that Surface is quite a bit more than the cheap-end Android tablets, but the handful of 10" Android tablets that exist and have even vaguely similar specs are about the same price (most are a bit cheaper, but nowhere near $200). Don't assume that all tablet hardware is anywhere close to equal.
The 32GB Surface is the same price as the 16GB iPad. The 32GB Surface with keyboard/touchpad/cover is the same price as the 32GB iPad without any such accessory. The 64GB Surface with keyboard/touchpad/cover is the same price as the 64GB iPad without accessories. Additionally, Surface comes with Office. It doesn't *look* cheaper than the iPad, but the 32GB iPad, without accessories, is $100 more than the 32GB Surface without accessories.
Win8 apps don't have to be written in C# (native C/C++, Javascript, and any other .NET language are also supported). Most apps do need to have their UIs re-written to port them to "Windows 8" (Metro) style, but the program logic can remain in another language with just a recompile to ARM if needed. I grant that the number of apps which have been so transformed is small-ish thus far, but it's growing quite rapidly (download the x86 version of Win8 and take a look if you want).
Surface does support Windows networking natively, of course. The email client has excellent Exchange support. The RT (ARM) version doesn't support domain-joining, but the "Pro" version (64-bit Intel) does.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
1. IF they buy them, tons of people are going to return these when they realize they can't run x86 Windows applications on them and also be disappointed at Microsoft for it. That disappointment will be contagious. This is poor marketing by not clearly differentiating architecture platforms. Not to mention the fact that they used an x86 based tablet in the keynote launch and will also sell it under the "Surface Pro" moniker. OSX is not iOS and nobody thinks that it is.
2. Microsoft is so ubiquitous that it is hard to think of anything MS as a specialty/luxury product. They should have created some mystery in-house brand with lots of viral marketing and kept Ballmer publicly as far away from it as possible. Oh and don't pilfer the product name from a previous technology associated with making people look awkward on TV in front of unnaturally large touch screens.
3. For the way they are putting the spotlight on it, ALL devices should come with the keyboard cover. It's almost like selling it without a charger. It's just a disappointing out of the box experience rather than a delightful surprise. Or at least something like the first million devices get a free keyboard cover.
4. Apple has all the mindshare as the "spent more money than I needed to and I'm proud of it" computing brand. Android has all the mindshare as the "got my money's worth" mobile brand. There's not much else to think about. Where can MS achieve significant mindshare and make the customer feel like they are winning?
Honestly I like the device and think I would enjoy owning one but I feel no urge to order one.
Get as few people as possible to buy this, and keep the price up. I'm serious. Look at how they introduced it: we're going to hype it, show a few people, not let them use it, and not tell them what the price is. This created buzz. Even now, if you pre-order, you're paying for something you've never used, for which there are no real reviews. If hardly anyone is using it, hardly anyone will complain about the issues that it's first gen will have, but lots of people will think of it as this elusive, premium product. This buys them buzz and time to work out the bugs for the second gen.
can I put OSX on any intel/AMD box yet???
until that is possible (without hacks) it isnt apples and oranges anyway you want to look at it. I am not saying that it is wrong I am just saying it is 2 different business models, one I prefer over the other.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
1. It follows the standard market diffusion curve. You price high, get the innovators, and early adopters. Discount a little to attract the masses. Massive discount at the end of the life cycle to get the late adopters.
2. Microsoft tax. Which begs the question - Can you load Linux on it and get your MS Tax back? Inquiring minds want to know.
3. Eek - Did you watch the marketing video? WE ARE BORG! YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED! NOW BACK IN THE MATRIX PUNNY EARTHLING! I felt like throwing up. It embodies everything that is wrong with Microsoft. It attempts to be cool by being cool and fails miserably. On top of it, it is form over functionality. Ohhh snazzy color, clicky keyboard. Show why it is better than the iPad, not that it has a keyboard. Geez. Who is running the Marketing Department at MS? Some wanna be hipster who missed the hipster bus because he was reading his MS indoctrination?
Now, whether the price tag is actually what consumers will spend, that is a different question. If I only had two pieces of information, that marketing video and the price tags, I would buy a laptop. If I couldn't buy a laptop, I'd by an Android tablet.
Justifiable? Sure—they're trying to sell a profitable product. Hard to imagine "price fairly compensates seller" as a major factor driving most consumer purchasing decisions, alas. What seems off to me is the fact that they're now saying the Office applications bundled with the Surface RT "are not for use in commercial, nonprofit, or revenue generating activities," at least not without purchasing — wait for it — an additional "commercial-use" Office license. In other words, the two featured benefits of the Surface RT over the iPad are (1) a keyboard/cover that costs $120 extra, and (2) a bundled version of Office that can't be used to do "work".
I'm not certain it's a question of it being justifiable - it might not have been possible for MS to go much cheaper...
* Even with Apple's notoriously generous margins, MS perhaps doesn't carry the same weight in the hardware world to get the types of deals Apple gets
* But even more importantly, if this is a "flagship" device that is supposed to show the way for OEMs, if MS undercut Apple by too much they would have left no room for OEMs to make their models, especially if Apple then matched their pricing...
Nokia gave AT&T exclusive rights to provide cellular service to the Lumia 900. Is this a joke?
No, it's not a joke. Strictly speaking it's not even true. Do you really think Nokia did this alone or would have without all those Micro$?
It's all about the perception of exclusivity on the world's most heavily marketed wireless network. The one where AT&T doesn't have to care how many dropped calls you suffer because they have created the expectation that paying more = better performance, even when it's not true.
AT&T is even offering diminished pricing for Lumia contracts for M$ employees in the vain hope that they will eat their own dog chow... lol.
The Xoom was priced a lot higher than the ipad, I don't recall the market responding to this "better" product.
Right, like the $199 Kindle Fire that sold like hotcakes. I have money for an iPad, but I have a firesale HP Touchpad with CM installed and love it.Why? Because having money and enjoying giving it away are not the same thing. When I see people sporting the latest iPhone5 of iPad, and I know they are at an income level below me (it ain't that hard to figure out) I do not assume they have a rich uncle, I assume they are idiots and have high credit card debt. I could afford a BMW, but I drive a Honda, because it works and it's TCO is low.
New android tablets are nice, and do everything. I can not think of one compelling reason to go with surface over an android tablet. If Acer or somebody starts pumping them out for $199 I'll take a look.
When has MS marketing ever been any good? Remember the whole MSN butterfly thing, with people running around in blue butterfly suits? It's amazing a company can stay in business with such horrible marketing for such a long time.
Third-party apps are probably the ones people are most interested in having an MS machine for.
This isn't windows ce, it windows 8. They are showcasing their flagship os and they need the hardware to have the power to do it. The last thing they need is for a under-powered tablet to give people the impression that windows 8 is sluggish and not worth upgrading to.
Something else that I never see on Slashdot is an understanding of the concept of fashion. Every slashdotter knows exactly why and when they would want to use a Mac or a PC running Linux, Windows, BSD whatever. He (/she) would pick the right tool for the job based on a technical understanding of what he needed to accomplish. But we are in a minority, dear friends!
My job involves a lot of air travel. In the airport lounge all I see these days are shiny corporate types, or tastefully scruffy creative types with MacBooks and iPads. Not a single one of them has a clue why this is a good idea (other than a hazy concept of 'fewer viruses'), they just want them because they look cool and expensive. The point about fashion is that it inevitably changes; as soon as a few of these Surfaces show up, the suits and artists will think they are cooler than iPads and will buy them in droves.
Microsoft have understood that there are a great many people who just want to have the 'best' thing. Apple's computers are far more beautiful than any PC out there and the iPad likewise amongst tablets. What Microsoft have done is to create a beautiful piece of hardware that stands comparison with the iPad and that is all they needed to do.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
I work at Staples as a Resident Technician.
Just to let you all know, one of the Windows 8 RT tablets that we are going to be carrying had it's price tag drop into our system today, only $169. I believe it was either an archos or acer. Just thought you all might like to know.
Exactly, first-party apps didn't help NT on Alpha or Windows 2000/2003 on Itanium very much (hell on Alpha they even had FX!32 to allow third-party Win32 apps to run). If it doesn't run native x86 Win32 apps flawlessly and seamlessly then most businesses won't be all that interested as the native app ecosystem of both ipad and Android are going to be vastly superior.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I swear to God i'm not trying to troll...
Will the x86 surface be succeptible to all the Windows viruses out there? I assume ARM will be immune, due to the different architecture, but what about the x86?
Secondly will that require an active virus scanner to be ran the whole time?
And lastly... Wouldn't that kill the battery?
I'm not trying to criticize, I think a tablet with AD integration, and full Office will be useful as hell, just have questions about impact of viruses.
I suspect Microsoft made the Surface expensive for the same reason that companies make sneakers so expensive. In theory cognitive dissonance will make people assume that anything that pricey must be good. Not that sticking a keyboard on a tablet is exactly unique. Even my cell phone has a keyboard.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
You used to sell Nomads!
You're asking if M$ products are overpriced on SLASHDOT?!
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
that Microsoft's constituency doesn't buy on quality, they buy on workplace utility and/or price (i.e. a fairly lean cost-benefit analysis).
Microsoft sells to premium-averse households and to the enterprise.
Neither is the right market for a BMW or a Rolls Royce; they're the market for a Ford, whether we're talking station wagon or pickup truck.
Good marketing doesn't happen in a vacuum; it understands something about the market in question as well. Sure, it can be oriented toward the development of new market segments, but as you have so clearly explained, other likely market segments are already occupied and Microsoft is ceding them almost from the start.
It's a dumb move. Microsoft won't get the high-end consumers, because Microsoft's track record doesn't support their making that choice. Why take a risk and pay even more for Microsoft (with whom they've traditionally been dissatisfied) when they can spend less and get Apple (with whom they're already satisfied)? It's a limited market from the start, and now Microsoft is pricing higher than Apple?
I just don't see the victory here. The Android market may have lower margins, but it's potentially much, much larger and in that market Microsoft could leverage existing customer goodwill (since Microsoft has traditionally met these customers' needs). Sure, there are some success stories with this strategy, but there are far, far more "new luxury product ships no volume" stories.
At the high end, branding is everything, and Microsoft already has a low-end brand.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
> Microsoft compiled their apps for different architectures before, I don't think it would be *that* hard for them to do it again.
While Windows NT did run on various platforms it had FX!32 which would run x86 programs in a semi-emulated environment.
"""Run x86 Applications with FX/32
Compaq DIGITAL FX/32 is a subsystem that runs 32-bit x86 binaries and optimizes them for the Alpha while you are doing other things. It’s unsupported, but still available for download, and it’s the only way you’ll run x86 applications such as Microsoft Office."""
So, no, they didn't just 'compile their apps for different architectures'.
Generally, people don't like Microsoft products. They don't choose to use Windows, it is what is forced down their throats at the work place-- so running same at home is path of least resistance.
It is admittedly convenient to be able to run MS Office and QuickBooks and other workhorse productivity apps at home.
First-tier apps as the geek knows full well.
But that is not the reason the mass market Windows desktop ships with enough horsepower to play games like Arkham City and Skyrim in high definition with multichannel theater sound.
The push to get the PC in the workplace came from the bottom-up. not the top down. The launch of Windows 95 struck a populist chord that resonates to this day. Good Times
The geek continues to project his hatred of Windows on users who have never shared it.
Utter crap.
Surface Pro will be available 90 days after Surface RT, which mean late January and not late Q1.
Gotta say, Windows 8 Tablets are just anything but a "Me Too" tablet. The fact is, if you wanted to call it a me too tablet, Apple would have to put the full OS X on iPad and let you run everything on it before it was a me-too.
The regular Surface tablet might be me-tooish. It's just a lame ass tablet. The Surface Pro... which will be more expensive is going to be a whole different beast. The Surface will run the same old apps as iPad. In my house, we have four iPads. One for each of us. I use my iPad for reading books because of the high resolution display, everything else I do with my Slate. Everything is just harder and takes longer on an iPad. Even watching videos is just not a positive experience on the iPad. The App Store and Music store has REALLY sucked since iOS 6 too. These days, when I want to buy a new film, song or app on the Apple store, I break out my slate, use iTunes and buy it there and download it to the iPad.
I have used iPhone 4 for the past few years (got it the week it came out) and now that it's pretty much end of life and it's time for a new phone, I'm looking elsewhere than Apple since I can't see paying for a CPU upgrade which is basically all the iPhone 5 is. And since I'll have to buy all new accessories for my phone anyway (thanks to the dock connector ordeal, I'm probably going to look at the Samsung Ativ S.
Microsoft Surface Pro on the other hand (I really just don't even consider Surface worth buying) will be a huge upgrade for my Samsung Series 7 Slate and it will be accessorizable. I don't usually get that excited about new tech coming out, but if the Surface Pro at least has a full HD screen, I'll replace my tablet and one of my laptops (probably my MacBook Air) as well as my iPad 3 with this one device.
I think people really need to stop comparing iPad to Windows 8. It's like comparing a bicycle to a race car. There are some similarities between the two technologies, but iPad is for FaceBook, eBooks and Angry Birds type games. Windows 8 systems are for getting things done. A machine you can actually accomplish things on should definitely cost more than a machine you read books on and play goofy games on.
how is he a victim here? The Pro version of surface IS a fully blown version that will run your win 7 software just fine. Only the RT version has the walled garden restrictions
Regardless of the price now, the price in 6-12 months will be much lower during the fire sale. iOS and Android have such a huge lead, there isn't really room in the product space for a third OS.
The reason MS is doing their own hardware is because they are sick of the race-to-the-bottom mentality of the OEMs. Quality is always the first thing to go. I would rather they build a solid product and sell it for a fair price. There's still room for oems to come in lower if they want.
>>Then yes, it's worth an extra buck-twenty. What good is a cheaper device that I can't do my work on? That's just a toy.
Yep. I'm looking to replace my laptop, and am mulling getting the x86 version of the Surface. (The RT / ARM version of it doesn't interest me in the slightest.)
Looking at two equivalent laptops from Sony, the Windows 8 version of a good desktop replacement laptop is $320 cheaper than an identical Win7 machine. But I think Win8 is ridiculous, and a friend of mine who works for MSR told me there's no reason to go Win8 unless you have a touch screen. So I've been looking at the surface. But $999 for the Pro - with no dedicated graphics and no Blu-Ray player - puts it at more expensive than a desktop replacement with less usability for me.
I don't need a great video card in a laptop (my desktop is for Skyrim and etc.), but I do need something that will entertain me, and games and Blu-Rays are my entertainment when I'm on the road for work.
And that is only of interest when it is heavily discounted :).
Pricing the Surface at the same point as the iPad sends out a message to consumers that says "we think the Surface is as good as the iPad". Microsoft clearly want to position Windows 8/RT on tablets as a premium product, it doesn't want to compete with Android, it wants to compete with Apple and iOS.
The pricing seems to strongly suggest this is their strategy. Just one serious issue, this only works if MS Surface is a polished product when it comes out. Certainly, they've had a fair bit of time to try to polish Surface, but knowing MS, I doubt there is a snowflake's chance in hell of being anywhere near as polished as the iPad now is. Heck, I doubt Surface will be anywhere near as polished as Android 1.6 was. At that point, I suspect the perception will turn into "Surface is a PoS" and they're dead.
Do you seriously think MS will manage to successfully avoid this?
For a drop in the prices from MS to $50 below comparable Apple products. Just like Playbook.
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
This is, by far, IMHO, the best tablet I've ever seen, and especially considdering the Safari crashes whenever I'm browsing Facebook on my first gen iPad (with all apps closed).
Apple can' t even ship a stable browser.
Sorry, but you're looking for Surface Pro, which is a few $100 more :(
It would be amusing to think of someone hacking an iPad to run Windows 8 RT
Lack of Apps.. yep
Lack of developers.. yep
Lack of Ads.. nope
Lack of Google Services.. yep
Azure instead of.. everything else.. yep
Or a skin based marketing game.. an html5 Windows 8 emulator for your iPad
The xbox made right... yeah... that is why half of them have to replaced and the circle of death has brought the blue screen to consoles.
And as for people WANTING MS products... who actually BUYS MS? They buy a Dell, that comes with MS software pre-installed with no choice to remove it. And gosh MS goes out of its way to report the number of installs but not the number of de-activations, every PC pre-installed with windows that got wiped and had linux installed, still is counted as a MS install.
And if MS has such a good image, explain why its phones simply do not sell? Because the moment people have choice, they choose everything BUT MS.
And linux based PC, does the linux based phone and tablet market count? Then last week.
MS tried tablets before, they didn't sell. But hey, people LOVE MS products... they just don't buy them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One year from now, in the bargain bin.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
HP had a nice tablet, but they didn't sell because there was no market share and no apps for it. Once they started dumping them to get rid of stock, they sold out in three days. You can set a price based on estimated sales numbers, price per unit at that production level and development costs that need to be earned back. If your predictions fail, it doesn't matter what the unit price is, you will lose money. By calculating in a loss on the units for the first 2 years and making that back later when you have market share and get an income from your app market, you can "aggressively" buy market share to maybe get a future for your product and platform. It's not just a "if I build it, they will come" thing here. They have no unique selling point that anyone has discovered yet and they are at least the fourth party to try this market, with Apple and Android currently holding the main share, HP's WebOS failing and probably more attempts that I don't know about. The only way to get in that market is to either sell something people just "have to have" or to out-price your competitors by being the cheapest capable device. You have to build sustainability before you can start talking about profit margins.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
The Surface with keyboard is $599. And you need the keyboard because the office suite has not been fully updated for touch like the iPad office suite.
iPad starts at $399, and in less than one week, we expect a new model at $299.
There is nothing in the Surface lineup to match the screen on the iPad with Retina Display. So Microsoft is competing with the $299/$399 iPads, not the $499 iPad.
And iPad has about 500,000 apps, 250,000 of which are full-size, and over 100,000 hardware accessories. And the whole iTunes media ecosystem. Microsoft has 4000 apps for Surface RT, and their music store is relaunching again, for the 4th or 5th time this century.
And Apple has like 35 years of making consumer computers. On October 27th, Microsoft will have one (1) day of experience making consumer computers.
But wait, Surface RT has a cut-down version of the mouse-driven Microsoft Office. For $45, you can put Keynote, Pages, Numbers, iMovie, iPhoto, and GarageBand on your iPad, and that is going to enable you to produce a 2 minute marketing video for YouTube, which is a 21st century task, not just make a Word document, which is a 1985 task. And even with that $45 of software, that only makes an iPad Air into a $344 device, and iPad 2 would be $444.
So Surface has a lot of disadvantages against Apple.
And then back to the pricing, what does $599 buy you?
- $599 at Microsoft — 1 Surface RT with touch cover
- $599 at Apple — 1 iPad Air, 1 iPhone (or iPod touch,) 1 iPod shuffle, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, iMovie, iPhoto, GarageBand, and almost enough left over to get cases for everything
- $599 at Apple — 2 iPad Airs and a dollar change
- $599 at Apple — iPad with Retina Display, Wireless Keyboard, Keynote, Pages, Numbers
and Surface is only at all 5 Microsoft Stores. The Apple gear is at hundreds of Apple Stores and other stores.
The usable space on a 32 GB iPad is around 28 GB, Googling indicates the Surface will have around 20 GB left.
You should see the raping that AutoCAD does. They won't even give schools a discount while MS and Apple give it up for free.
No good deed goes unpunished.
The RT tablets do not support x86/64 or desktop apps. You need to wait for the full Win 8 Intel tablets (more expensive, early next year) to be able to run everything you might need (and join a domain for that matter). The RT tablets are consumption devices, much like iPads and Nexus tablets.
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
You're comparing an apple to half an apple, so to speak. The Surface with keyboard is not the same as the iPad at the same memory footprint. The Surface has a KEYBOARD that if you look costs..., $120. Wow, the exact difference in price. The Surface is the same cost at the same memory footprint as the iPad. In my humble opinion the Surface should be much, much, much, much, you get the idea more useful. It uses full fledged apps and has external memory expansion yadda yadda yadda. So, yes, I think the price point is good, I just think that colored crappy keyboard is intensely overpriced.
I would rather say willing. Microsoft has always tried to get the 80% of the market and simply ignore the remaining 20%. By targeting the IBM-Compatible market they got their 80% quite quickly. Only in the early days did they consider other platforms, but once the PC looked like the only remaining contender...
http://news.yahoo.com/why-32-gb-microsoft-surface-tablet-more-16-225900065.html
The free storage space on the Surface is ~20GB according to the Microsoft Test Manager for Surface RT. That apparently includes Office and "bunch of apps" so we won't really know how much storage space Windows 8 occupies by itself until the reviews come out. Regardless, it is clear that they couldn't ship a 16GB version because of the storage requirements of Windows 8.
iOS 6 on an iPad uses roughly 2.5GB. iWork (Numbers, Keynote, Pages) is roughly 1GB. Let's say it's 4GB including some overhead. So that's roughly 28GB of free storage on an iPad.
So somewhere up to 8GB of difference in system overhead of storage space, which is up to 25% of the entire device.
I am one of the lucky ones to get a MSDN Develoepr Subscription payed by my company and thus I was able to play with Win8. It is totally true, for a desktop machine Win8 is near useless. All you get is metro as a glorified overbuffed start menu and that's it. Most of the applications you would use are desktop applications and that is like Win7 but with no areos theme. If you happen to only read mail and browse the web... there may be an argument, but all the people who do that will probably ditch their desktop for the next upgrade.
It goes back farther than that. Bad marketing is endemic to Microsoft - all the way to the top.
If they release the surface any cheaper, they'll probably get sued for unfair pricing by their OEMs. I think everyone seems to have forgotten that they have to price the surface tablets at a similar price as their OEM partners else they will probably get slapped with a anti-trust lawsuit.
Apple on the other hand has no OEM partners, so they can set the price whatever they want and not worry about lawsuits.
I was very gung-ho for the surface release... I was going to buy multiple RT's at the rumored 199$ price point, heck, even if they were 300, I would buy 2-3. But at the price they're being released at, I'm not going to buy any except maybe the Pro because I'm not sure if RT will stick, it will take support from Dev's. Also the Pro I'll be able to integrate and use my resources with, RT not so much. But more over, if the Pro is going to be 1k+$ I'll only buy 1, just because I would like to see Microsoft producing hardware.
I was interested in the Surface, as there appears to be a "Win7" flavour available. Yet, no 3G out of the gate. It does give me an SD and USB slot, which would be fantastic, but no GODDAMN 3G options! That is the only thing keeping me from pre-ordering 20 of these for my sales team.
Are you 5 years old?
I'm sure plenty of people will be trying to run linux on it :)
The Surface tablet's base price may be $120 over the base iPad, but that's not a straight comparison. The base surface has 32GB of storage capacity with expandable storage. The comparable iPad is $599 and doesn't have expandable storage or a keyboard/screen cover. Absolute base price of $499 for the 32GB surface is the same price as the 16GB iPad. I'm not saying the surface is better than the iPad, and it's certainly not going to sell more, but at least be objective with your comparison.
I'm not an MS fan but a good friend of mine is a died-in-the-wool MS fan and even for him it's too expensive so he's going with an Android tablet for half the price.
Microsoft (MSFT) says its net income fell 22 percent in the latest quarter as shoppers held off for Windows 8, which launches next week.
The software company's net income was $4.47 billion, or 53 cents per share. That was down 22 percent from $5.7 billion, or 68 cents per share, a year ago.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505124_162-57535482/microsoft-earnings-dip-as-pc-sales-slip/
It is justified. I know 23 people at work who are excited to get one. My three kids have all asked for one, the wife wants one and is hounding me about it. 4 guys at the bar were all excited to throw away their ipads for one, and the people who listened in were like "Oh shit a tablet that I can actually use to work on! Good job!"
Slashdot and the rest of the blogosphere seems to think that the whole fucking world thinks and acts like they do and it is seriously immature. I don't care if every single blogger in the world writes a shitty ad-hoc post about how much they don't like windows 8 and the surface tablet. The reality is that it is what the people want, not what some shitty tabloid journalist wants, not what some shitty anaylist wants, not what IT people want. No one gives a flying fuck about you worthless fucking people. All you do is complain all fucking day.