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Microsoft Surface Struggles to Ship A Million Units
zacharye writes "While some see potential in Microsoft's Surface tablet, most industry watchers appear to have written off the device at this point. Orders were reportedly cut in half following a slow launch, and Microsoft's debut slate has been hammered time and time again by reviewers and analysts. The latest to pile on is Boston-based brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton, which estimates that when all is said and done, Microsoft will have sold fewer than 1 million Surface tablets in the slate's debut quarter."
Still better than 25,000.
Most Honest reviews of the surface are actually pretty positive. I think the main problem is that it's $650 by the time you add the touch cover. And most of the reviews say you need the Type cover to get a really good experience, which is even more expensive. For the price you can get a decent ultrabook that runs all your old windows programs, and is about the same size. Only thing missing is touch, which although nice, isn't a must-have feature. Most people are probably awaiting the Surface Pro, if they are thinking of buying a surface at all, because then you can run all your old Windows Software. If you can't run your old software, you could just get an iPad or a Nexus 7/10.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Then you're not paying attention. Most of the reviews I've seen say the OS is fine and Metro/Modern works okay for a tablet, it can be frustrating to use without a touchscreen on a desktop. So while Win 8 will probably work on older hardware, it might be best to wait to get it when consumers can get hardware with touch.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
There's still a lot of film/TV stuff that's available on DVD but not via online streaming, at least legally.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This. I was at a MS event on the Win 8 developers track and the presenter discussed this at how it is basically to maintain one code base between Windows 8 (Desktop/x86) and WinRT for Surface and Phone. I expect there to be some differences like I don't expect the desktop to have a GPS built in like on a phone, but the differences in the API go beyond that like trying to access the media API for sound between the two are different. I sat there at the presentation basically shaking my head thinking "WTF?".
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Actually there was a bit of a fire sale on the Kin.
The Kin ONE went from $50 to $30 after a month. The Kin TWO went from $100 to $50 at the same time. The devices where then discontinued shortly after.
Verizon then sent the remaining unsold units back to Microsoft. After a year, that same inventory of unsold devices emerged with a firmware update that turned them into feature phones, named the Kin ONEm and the Kin TWOm.