Microsoft Slashes Prices On Surface

McGruber writes "Thursday, The Verge broke the news that Microsoft was slashing the price of its tablets — the price of the 32-gig Surface RT plummeted by 42%! Staples, TigerDirect and many other retailers are already selling the tablets at the lowered prices. I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"

Comments

Price Adjustment

[Oysterville]

I doubt that Microsoft will do much of anything for those early adopters, but check with your place of purchase. Frequently they have a price guarantee that will cover price adjustments both at that store and with competitors.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"

Salute them as 'early adopters' and congratulate them for getting in early to avoid the rush.

Re:Price Adjustment

[auric_dude]

Caveat emptor, anyone?

Re:Price Adjustment

[hairyfeet]

Meh if you were dumb enough to buy one early? Sorry but you kinda deserved the wallet ding for failing to pay attention. Pretty much all of the media had already panned the thing, they were selling it for MORE than an iPad, the Surface had giant FAIL written all over it almost from the start so anybody with any common sense should have figured they'd either have to take a hell of a price drop or end up with a warehouse full of shit they couldn't sell. Folks forget that computer chips have a shelf life, if you don't move the units its soon badly outdated compared to what is on the market and nobody will buy it.

Honestly I wouldn't even buy it at the current price, the tegra 3 was never that great a chip to start with and thanks to bad design on the part of MSFT the Surface can't even take advantage of the fifth core on the tegra 3 so the battery life will be worse than Android on it. Maybe if it hits below $145 it might be worth playing with, but considering we are talking about a company with a history of abandoning products that don't become hits (Zune, Sidekick,Kin,WinPhone 7) do you REALLY want to take the chance?

Mark my words by xmas these things will either be on woot! at $100 or less like the Touchpad or they'll end up in a landfill somewhere, Anything to do with WinRT seems to be destined to fail, hence why nearly all the OEMs canceled their WinRT offerings.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Billly Gates]

So the more intellectual question is what is next if the surface fails?

I do not know of any ARM rt devices out there. I heard a rumor about an Acer but have never seen it.

Will this mean Windows 9 will be part of the WIndows 7 lineage and not WIndows 8/Windows mobile? Or will MS try a surface 2 and keep blowing money into it like they did with Bing and xbox for over a half a decade before they broke even? (Does bing make money yet?)

Personally I kind of got excited when it came out as Apple has a monopoly on the tablet market since they banned Samsung and other droid tablets out of the market here in the US for using icons and rounded corners. I have seen 1 android tablet in my lifetime by someone and that is it as everyone loves their ipads. But the surface lacked even a GPU unit and no cell phone service WTF. How usefull is this POS if I can not even get a map and weather reports if I am on the road? Seriously.

The surface pro still doesn't have either making it just a laptop and not a tablet and no disk space

Re:Price Adjustment

[roc97007]

> the Surface had giant FAIL written all over it almost from the start

Well, the RT definitely did. I don't think it's clear yet whether the "Surface Pro" (or whatever they called it -- the one on Intel that actually runs Windows) is worthy of the FAIL sticker just yet.

It's important to keep the RT (WinCE warmed over) and the Pro separate. They're distinct products. Although, I wonder whether the RT is dragging the Pro down with it.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Billly Gates]

Doh, GPS unit not GPU. Typo

Re:Price Adjustment

[ericloewe]

I firmly believe that the Surface Pro has, at the very least, a decent niche with only two competitors: Samsung Ativ Smart PC/Smart PC Pro and Sony Vaio duo 11/13. The former has atrocious build quality (keyboard connector has one pin covered by plastic) and shows signs of being rushed to market (Even the official screen protector film is labeled inside-out). The latter is heavy, has an inferior digitizer (Wacom on Surface Pro/Samsungs vs. N-Trig) and in my experience, Sony does its best to sneak out of paying for warranty repairs. Additionally, both have questionable software at best (Horrible Samsung drivers, traditional Sony bloatware).

Re:Price Adjustment

[Flere Imsaho]

You had me at "Meh if you were dumb enough to buy one"

Re:Price Adjustment

[spire3661]

Sony does not like supporting their computers. Dont buy them, no matter how sexy their hardware is.

Re:Price Adjustment

[umafuckit]

... but considering we are talking about a company with a history of abandoning products that don't become hits (Zune, Sidekick,Kin,WinPhone 7) do you REALLY want to take the chance?

I'm no MSFT fan, but another way of saying this is that they abandoned products that weren't profitable. Why would any company do otherwise?

Re:Price Adjustment

[oPless]

It's important to keep the RT (WinCE warmed over)

WRONG It's actually windows 8 compiled for arm.

Re:Price Adjustment

[PoiBoy]

I've got the 64GB Surface Pro, and I actually think it's a great machine. Admittedly, I virtually always use the desktop, and the only Metro apps I have are a couple of games. It's already replaced both my Android tablet and the small laptop I used to travel with. Once you get used to it, it really is a nice little machine, if not a bit pricey.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Anonymous Coward]

This particular company runs ad campaigns attempting to vilify its competitors for doing the same, with the very argument that GP used.

Re:Price Adjustment

[arth1]

Sure, it's possible. But why would they?
For Apple, it didn't cost much, if anything, given the high margins on their products and that a fair amount of gift card receivers could be expected to buy more than the gift card's worth while in the store anyhow, all of which would go back to Apple.
For Microsoft, the situation is somewhat different.

And why do people who bought something before a price drop feel entitled to anything? They bought at what they thought was a fair price. Whether to buy now or hold out for a possible price drop is always a gamble, and if you made the wrong choice, well, sucks to be you.

Re:Price Adjustment

[RulerOf]

I firmly believe that the Surface Pro has, at the very least, a decent niche with only two competitors

I'm typing this from a ThinkPad Helix, which I decided to purchase as I felt it offered me a little bit more of what I was looking for than the Surface Pro did. It's definitely got its faults, but it's worth pointing out that they're Lenovo's faults rather than anything to do with Windows.

It's the right product for me, but the thing holding it back is---of course---the price. Microsoft has a huge advantage with x86 being on their side, but unless they can get the platform down to a price that's competitive with other products in the same market, at the rate things are going that advantage provided by the platform itself will likely evaporate as other platforms' app catalogs close the gap and render the advantage of "being Wintel" completely moot.

That's not to say that we're not at least halfway there already. An iPad is a paradoxically capable device in a world that Microsoft has ruled for decades on compatibility and ubiquity alone, especially given the limitations of the hardware and form factor itself.

Re:Price Adjustment

[tnk1]

I have an android tablet. I like it just fine. Apple was not an impediment to me buying one.

I generally end up with iPhones, but that's mostly because work keeps giving me them, and I see no reason to buy an android phone simply because it isn't Apple. For a tablet, though, I prefer something I can play with (and root if need be) and not have to deal with Apple getting in my way.

The RT stuff was doomed from the get-go. MS was offering a product for a need that no one has, and they didn't provide anything better than the existing products in the market.

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

I own a surface pro, that's a very nice form factor for Windows 8. I'm a Mac guy and I'd say it is likely the best secondary computing device around. Big enough to work as a bad laptop, small enough to act as a tablet. Powerful enough to run Windows 7 and Windows 8 hardware. Capacitive touch screen for Metro application. Resistive touchscreen for OneNote and other classic tablet applications.

If you need a powerful machine it can't be your primary. It is a pity that no one is really making truly powerful laptops with capacitive screens (though Lenovo is heading that way). But I think it is rather good.

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

The Helix is an amazing machine. It is also a $2k laptop. The low end yoga, the twist thinkpad... are what are the reasonable comparisons.

Re:Price Adjustment

[mysidia]

If the direction of the price change was the opposite; say a $150 price increase. Could they reasonably expect every buyer to come in and pay the difference?

Re:Price Adjustment

[AmiMoJo]

Surface was never meant to compete with the iPad. It's more like a laptop/tablet hybrid. The iPad is about mini-apps, mostly viewing data and playing simple games. There are exceptions but look at it this way: Surface comes with a keyboard and stand designed into the form factor, the iPad is a purely hand-held touch operated device.

Microsoft's target market is people who want to work on Windows creating documents or writing longish emails but also want a tablet form factor they can easily carry with them or use hand-held for viewing. Of course being Microsoft they completely failed to communicate this and further confused things by having two different platforms with the introduction of RT.

The point is that it should really be compared to netbooks or Chromebooks, in which case it was still massively overpriced but an interesting twist on the idea.

Re:Price Adjustment

[RulerOf]

Sorry... the point I'm making is that the real competition for Microsoft is the tablet itself. Excellent attempts to shoehorn the Windows on Intel platform into the tablet form factor have been done, and some of them such as the Surface Pro and the ThinkPad Helix have done a really good job at it given the constraints of the technology itself---the bound of which is mostly the Intel chips themselves.

The fact that my Helix has an Intel chip in it is enough for me to want it as the device that fits my needs as a tablet---aided greatly by the fact that it actually IS a tablet. With the catalogs of apps available on iOS and Android being so comprehensive, the benefit of the Helix's or Surface's pedigree doesn't shine as bright as it would have even a year ago. That benefit of course is that I can run damn near anything on it if I need to, "Full Windows" included. If that benefit itself becomes wholly irrelevant by the time Windows becomes cost-competitive in the tablet platform, then its market in that platform will cease to exist.

Re:Price Adjustment

[ericloewe]

Not netbooks, ultrabooks. It's mostly comparable to an ultrabook in the format of a tablet. From that point of view, it works. Netbooks were always intended for extra-lightweight content creation and consumption. Chromebooks seem to be an attempt at throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. If you a look at the Surface Pro like something you can easily carrry around but still do some heavier (non-GPU) tasks if needed (the flexibility of full Windows helps a lot), it makes sense and is decently priced, considering its competitors.
External connectivity is a bit more limited, but still workable - that's the major difference between it and ultrabooks, besides screen size.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Anonymous Coward]

It's meaningless to speak of "Windows 8" compiled for ARM here because "Windows 8" (absent the RT or Pro subcategorization) is simply a marketing umbrella term encompassing very different OS's.

The basic issue is, Windows 8 RT is not compatible with Windows 8 "Pro" or any historical Windows desktop or server OS...

That does not make "it a very different OS". It makes it Windows 8 COMPILED FOR ARM.

Just like my Pi is Linux COMPILED TO ARM. It is not compatable with X86 compiled apps. The difference is I can download the source for most Linux apps.

Re:Price Adjustment

[isdnip]

But it might as well be completely different.

With Linux, a developer can compile to an target platform and make it available. And since sources are often available, someone else's program can be ported to a different target CPU.

With Windows RT, programs can only be installed from the Microsoft Store. So whether or not they're compatible is irrelevant. Both the original developer and Microsoft have to agree that it should be made available for RT before it can run there. So having commonality with Win8 is merely a convenience for developers.

Re:Price Adjustment

[petermgreen]

The difference is I can download the source for most Linux apps.

The other difference is that MS crippled their arm port of windows so that all non-ms apps had to use the UI/libraries formally known as metro rather than the traditional windows UI and APIs. So rather than simply recompiling for arm developers (whether open or closed source) have to reegineer their apps for metro and then distribute them through microsofts store (where MS takes a cut of course).

Yes I'm aware there is a hack to bypass the crippling but a hack that could go away at any time is not something to base a product on.

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

I don't see any possibility of it become irrelevant that fast. There is nothing like Libre Office much less Dynamics or Sharepoint for tablets. There is nothing like Visual Studio. There isn't even anything like a complex web browser.

Tablets are very far behind.

Re:Price Adjustment

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's important to keep the RT (WinCE warmed over) and the Pro separate. They're distinct products. Although, I wonder whether the RT is dragging the Pro down with it.

RT is better than WinCE in some respects(although it strives to hide it): it is actually a direct port of the WinNT line, kernel and at least enough userspace to run a nearly-normal version of office, to ARM; unlike WinCE's 'totally different and maybe OK for really resource constrained systems with some vaguely win32-ish stuff on top' approach.

On the minus side, while WinCE was(on most retail devices, custom embedded was up to the vendor) treated as a largely open platform, for the relative few who actually cared to develop for it, WinRT is Windows Store and Metro(for third parties, as noted, enough of normal Windows lives on for it to run Office, and a variety of other test payloads that people have hacked onto it, the lockout is firmly artificial) only.

MS has made it fairly plain that the horrors of Metro and the app store are the Exciting! future; but it is more mandatory on RT than elsewhere.

Re:Price Adjustment

[ak3ldama]

can not even get a map and weather reports

I don't know how anyone got around before, we must have all just been lost and looking at the sky.

Re:Price Adjustment

[phantomfive]

So the more intellectual question is what is next if the surface fails?

It will, it's just a matter of time before your question is answered.

Personally I kind of got excited when it came out as Apple has a monopoly on the tablet market since they banned Samsung and other droid tablets out of the market here in the US for using icons and rounded corners.

They aren't banned. Go to Best Buy, you'll see a bunch of them. Or look here.

Re:Price Adjustment

[daveinaustin990]

When has there ever been price adjustments for any technology? There's typically a premium for being an early adopter.

Re:Price Adjustment

[yoshi_mon]

The /. headline is very misleading as as TFA clearly says, in both their headline and the article, that this is only about the RT units. (Bad timothy, bad! Let MS keep shooting themselves in the foot!)

That being said to your point about the media panning the thing? I do not remember that. I remember a LOT of fawning (and what clearly was some paid for shilling) over the non-RT unit. And then very little about the RT from the bit names, often those who were very often shilling for the non-RT, or something very non-committal as to not anger the MS cash to shill flow.

My take on that was that with the way the units were named, planned this way I'm sure, is that there would be this hype about the awsome!!!!!one!@##$!@ Surface unit. But damn it did cost a lot so you could just buy the RT version for the cheap! It is almost the same right, RIGHT!? Anand said how great our Surface unit was and he never is biased for Intel or MS platforms! Buy the RT!!!!

Re:Price Adjustment

[msobkow]

Exactly.

If something was worth n dollars purchase price to you, does the value proposition change when the price goes down later? Are you somehow "ripped off" because you bought early?

If that's your thinking on things, you should always be buying 2 year old models of hardware because they're cheap compared to their performance.

Re:Price Adjustment

[ArsonSmith]

Did it suddenly lose value to the owner when the price dropped in the market? The one who purchased it at the previous price seemed to think that that value of the tablet was higher than that of the money payed. Sure you always want to get the best deal, but once that deal is made the purchaser has profited as well as the seller.

Re:Price Adjustment

[interkin3tic]

The media panning I seem to recall was because it wasn't an ipad, not because it was doomed to fail. There's also the issue of the "media" covering consumer electronics is somehow even worse than the rest of the media. It's almost all tabloids for nerds, reporting rumors and regurgitating press releases.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Anonymous Coward]

> Will this mean Windows 9 will be part of the WIndows 7 lineage and not WIndows 8/Windows mobile?

We can only dream. Hey, if Intel could admit Pentium 4 was a horrible mistake, Microsoft can do the same with Metro.

One of my coworkers put it well... Microsoft has turned so many people so vehemently against Metro by virtue of fucking up Windows 8 in its name, if you forced him to choose between:

a) walking around the mall wearing a leather jockstrap and high heels, or

b) being seen at DefCon or BlackHat using a Surface tablet,

he'd sigh, put on the leather jockstrap, and try to not break his neck walking in heels... because he values his good name and reputation too much to be seen in public with something as scorned and taboo as a WindowsRT tablet.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Trax3001BBS]

"I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"

Salute them as 'early adopters' and congratulate them for getting in early to avoid the rush.

Long time ago the US Robotics 14.4 HST was one of the fastest modems you could buy, it cost $800 (US) + a verifiable online service
and a 3 month wait. I bought one; just so happened that a new version was being produced (square lites) to replace the old
modems (round lites) and both were being shipped at the same time. When mine finally showed up the box had all types of
stickers on it saying in what ways it had been improved (whole new modem). I got lucky, It was hit or miss who got what.

One very verbal person got the old round lites and to say he was pi$$ed would be an understatement. I don't think he
was ever appeased in anyway. For months he was on Fidonet and Usenet demanding a newer model -which he should of gotten.
I really felt for him as well as everybody else that got the older models and so glad I had a new one.

The wide use of the Internet changed that type of marketing.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Bert64]

Users do not understand what "compiled for arm" means... If they see a product marketed as windows, then they expect it to be able to do the same things that the version of windows they're used to can. This is why users were often disappointed with wince laptops and windows mobile phones, the branding creates expectations which are then not met.

Linux on arm with a few small exceptions *can* have the same catalogue of software as linux on x86, you can have firefox, libreoffice etc... Debian for arm has almost all of the same applications available for it as debian for x86. It's also less well known, and thus carries less expectations.

Apple ios is based on the same kernel as macosx, and yet its intentionally marketed differently so as to avoid just the kind of confusion and disappointment microsoft causes with its "windows everywhere" obsession.

Re:Price Adjustment

[mysidia]

If that's your thinking on things, you should always be buying 2 year old models of hardware because they're cheap compared to their performance.

Yes.... if you want the most product for the lowest cost, buying as late as possible makes sense, because of the time value of money.... even if the product 2 years later were exactly the same price; you would have saved on opportunity cost and cost of capital: you could have invested that money over the 2 years and earned a return -- this is assuming the product didn't provide you a benefit over those 2 years that was worth more than the value in opportunity cost.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Bert64]

Which is why you should never become dependent on a proprietary product, you'll be left holding a lemon if it gets dropped.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Bert64]

So don't buy anything remotely new, wait for it to come up on ebay for a pittance when its 10 years old.

Re:Price Adjustment

[davester666]

What are you saying you heretic!

Bill says that in order to do serious Enterprise work, you need a stylus, a keyboard and Microsoft Office. The Surface RT has all three [well, you need to spring for the keyboard and stylus, but oh, that satisfying 'click' when you attach the keyboard to the Surface]!

And Bill knows!

Re:Price Adjustment

[umafuckit]

That's the point: it's a normal business practice that you can spin whichever way you like.

Re:Price Adjustment

[hairyfeet]

But isn't the Surface Pro just a wintel tablet? And while you may like it I wouldn't count on it getting updated for long, just look at how MSFT fucked the WinPhone 7 early adopters by refusing to port WinPhone 8 thus leaving them on a platform with very few apps and already as good as abandoned.

But the main thing we are talking about is WinRT which was doomed before it ever got out the gate, the reason MSFT has a virtual lock on the desktop is the billions of dollars worth of Windows programs. With Surface RT all you have is a system that runs less than iPhone and Android and for a higher price and with less battery life since WinRT doesn't support the tegra 3 fifth core

So while I'm glad you like it I don't know if i would even entertain, much less recommend, the WinRT platform simply because of MSFT track record of abandoning devices that don't meet a metric in x amount of time, again look at what they did to the WinPhone as well as sidekick and Kin. Maybe if they drop below $150 it might be a good deal, above that price point I'd be leery.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Before I switched to a different brand of laptops, I used to buy Sony. I was always able to purchase replacement parts from directly from them and they offered service manuals for each model. I noticed the quality was starting to suffer and the price remained too high so I switched.

It appears they no longer have a parts store but they do refer you to an authorized third party.

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

But isn't the Surface Pro just a wintel tablet?

With a removable keyboard, yes. It is a good one and Windows 8 makes it work quite well.

And while you may like it I wouldn't count on it getting updated for long, just look at how MSFT fucked the WinPhone 7 early adopters by refusing to port WinPhone 8 thus leaving them on a platform with very few apps and already as good as abandoned.

I'd assume it gets updated through the life of Windows 8. I think it will be a long time till Windows 9 only applications are common. Remember I'm a mac guy. I'm used to forced upgrades. I don't expect to get more than 4 years from my retina (though it will probably sell for 40% of what I paid after 4 yrears) , and that was a lot more money.

With Surface RT all you have is a system that runs less than iPhone and Android and for a higher price and with less battery life since WinRT doesn't support the tegra 3 fifth core

Surface RT is a different can of worms since it doesn't run Windows x86 applications at all. I like the Pro because it can switch from just being a tablet to being a bad laptop. Cut that off entirely and tablet part has to carry much more weight. On the other hand I was pleasantly surprised how well my iPad went with my iPhone, I suspect for owners of Windows Phone the RT might be a good tablet. And I'm of the opinion that for Windows owners, Windows phone is quite good.

as well as sidekick and Kin

Sidekick was a server disaster. I can't blame that on sales problems. As far as Kin, that was more of a Verizon / Microsoft issue. I don't think it is quite the same thing. Releasing it in the first place after Verizon was no longer interested in the subsidy might have been slimy.

Re:Price Adjustment

[bad-badtz-maru]

Use your phone as a wifi hotspot.

Re:Price Adjustment

[StormReaver]

I'm no MSFT fan, but another way of saying this is that they abandoned products that weren't profitable.

Or put another way: Microsoft spews as much copycat crap as possible into the crowd, and watches to see who doesn't wipe it off their faces. If enough people notice they're covered in shit, Microsoft closes the tap. Otherwise, they call it their next big product.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I dimly remember that whole affair. HST? Certainly!

"Elite" access to BBS and the lot...

Re:Price Adjustment

[MachineShedFred]

The Helix is expensive because of two things: 1. it carries the full enterprise out-of-band management that Yoga and ThinkPad Twist are missing; and 2. it's way thinner than either Twist or Yoga.

Twist and Yoga are great if you're a consumer - you probably won't notice any difference other than the physical dimensions. But enterprise business is going to care about the out-of-band management, because at least the business I work for is looking to standardize on vPro hardware for the massive savings in power management and standardized remote control that is based in hardware, rather than an agent that can break, running on an OS that can break. The value of vPro is easily demonstrated by rigging a machine to blue screen on boot by changing the AHCI settings in BIOS; using vPro to remote control the bluescreen'd PC while the OS is halted, reboot it and go into the BIOS, and change the setting. All remotely, from 1000 miles away.

Lenovo also never made a Yoga that they've even tried to sell to enterprise business, because they are concerned with the hinge design holding up for the standard lifecycle that business customers expect. They are going to have a Yoga-style product in the coming Haswell generation (I've heard from our sales rep, at least), but it's not here yet. Twist is just a slightly thinner X230 Tablet, if we're being honest - that product has been around for almost a decade.

Re:Price Adjustment

[ljw1004]

Agreed. I've been happily using SurfacePro as my sole machine for the past six weeks. I guess I don't need a "powerful machine" -- my use is limited to just being a developer on the Visual Studio team at Microsoft, and a bunch of photoshopping of screenshots, and it's plenty good enough for that.

(I'm sure that video games would be more demanding. Haven't tried them yet.)

Re:Price Adjustment

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

We're up all night for good fun.

We're up all night to get lucky.

Re:Price Adjustment

[geminidomino]

I always thought that Wacom should add an SD slot to a Cintiq and just finally sell the digital sketchbook I've been trying to find (and being disappointed) for almost a decade. (The closest I came was an old Fujitsu Stylistic with Autodesk SketchBook).

Then I look and see what they charge for even the smallest of that line, and realize that it would be insanely expensive if they did...

Re:Price Adjustment

[BasilBrush]

Who's Bill?

Re:Price Adjustment

[davester666]

Whoosh!

Google [or bing] "Microsoft Bill"

Re:Price Adjustment

[BasilBrush]

Google just gives me a load of Android advertising for that search term. Perhaps you meant Bob.

Re:Price Adjustment

[hairyfeet]

Meh as somebody who is down here in the trenches i think that while the pro MAY find a niche, and I say may because the stench of WinRT has confused folks who now think ALL Surface devices can't run shit, but in the grand scheme of things? I seriously doubt it will get more than 5% of the market tops.

So while I'm sure its nice the simple fact is a good 99% of the Windows software out there just wasn't written with touch in mind, and in a classic chicken or the egg problem they aren't gonna spend the crazy money for a touch focused UI rebuild when less than 2% of PCs on the planet have touch capability.

Anyway as a guy that sells tech you can call me biased but when I'm seeing is tablet equals toy, smartphones are Google in a box and MP3 players that make calls, and when folks want Windows they want a desktop or a laptop. The only reason sales are down is the end of the MHz war has made multicores as common as dirt and most users can't come up with enough work to slam even a Pentium D or Athlon64 X2 but as long as MSFT keeps the insane prices the ONLY ones that will be buying it will be guys that need a tablet that runs Windows programs which frankly is a pretty small niche.

Re:Price Adjustment

[breeze95]

Surface was never meant to compete with the iPad. It's more like a laptop/tablet hybrid.

Microsoft is currently running ads comparing Surface to iPad; so, I would guess that Microsoft absolutely intended for Surface to compete with iPads.

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

I'm not saying the Helix is a ripoff. Agree with what you wrote as far as specifics. I was just saying don't compare $1k and $2k laptops directly. You get a lot more for $2k.

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

I don't think it will get more than 5% tops. But 5% is a ton. 1% and Microsoft will likely be quite satisfied. As I said I'm a Mac guy. I got it at WPC but owning a $1k laptop is a secondary is a niche consumer. My retina is a niche product too.

and in a classic chicken or the egg problem they aren't gonna spend the crazy money for a touch focused UI rebuild when less than 2% of PCs on the planet have touch capability.

Figures I'm seeing 6% of laptops are now touch enabled. And Microsoft is going to keep that figure going up. And as we both know they can do that if they want to.

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

Good to hear. Than as an aside, since I assume you use a big screen sometimes... How does the HD digital AV adapter connect? It seems like the connection to the computer is smaller than the hole on the surface?

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

I stand corrected. Thank you. Wasn't sure how that was working.

Re:Price Adjustment

[ljw1004]

For my dev work, I only use the Surface screen. I guess at age 38 my eyesight's still good enough.

I connect up to a big-screen in conference rooms. Sometimes the conference room has a mini-display-port which plugs in fine to the surface directly. Sometimes the conference room only has VGA, so I use the surface pro's VGA adapter, which also works fine.

What I have to say is that the touch-screen is AWESOME on a laptop form-factor. I'll be using Windows FileExplorer and I'll be able to tap icons (rather than using the touch-pad or having to plug in a mouse). Actually I prefer tapping to mouse. I also like putting my hand to the right of the screen and using my thumb to scroll.

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

Touchscreen is awesome. 95% finger, 4.9% pen, .1% mouse

Re:Price Adjustment

[ArsonSmith]

How do you know the purchaser didn't use it to complete a million dollar sell. Then maybe the purchaser "over profited" what ever that is suppose to mean.

Re: Price Adjustment

[Gen_Music]

So did Apple with the iPad and iPhone. Nobody really wanted an app store and certainly didn't want non-interoperable portable devices, before the iPhone.

Re:Price Adjustment

[ericloewe]

Quality sure as hell suffered. My Vaio SE got its screen scratched by the palm rest just by being carried around in a laptop case. Its keyboard supports snapped on one side after applying a bit more pressure than usual. They did fix the latter, but wanted 300+€ for a new screen (The screen was scratched, had developed bright spots and a dead pixel and always had backlight bleed). Considering they essentially wanted 1/3 of the original price to replace the screen, I refused.

So much for Sony having better quality than most. They certainly won't be getting my money again, regardless of product.

Re:Price Adjustment

[Plumpaquatsch]

Surface was never meant to compete with the iPad. It's more like a laptop/tablet hybrid.

Microsoft is currently running ads comparing Surface to iPad; so, I would guess that Microsoft absolutely intended for Surface to compete with iPads.

And they just added another item "Way, way cheaper than the iPad" to the long list. I'm sure they will be successful now.

Re:Price Adjustment

[RulerOf]

But enterprise business is going to care about the out-of-band management, because at least the business I work for is looking to standardize on vPro hardware for the massive savings in power management and standardized remote control that is based in hardware, rather than an agent that can break, running on an OS that can break.

I have to admit that vPro feels more like a line item than a feature. By that, I mean that I've never encountered anything that's leveraged vPro to make my life easier as a SysAdmin. Now I've got a machine with vPro built in and I haven't the slightest clue what I could do to at least play with it.... I should get out more :D

vPro was ironically one of the features of this Helix that inched me closer to deciding to purchase it, though it wasn't vPro explicitly. Someone on the Xen-Users mailing list made a note that every machine he'd looked at recently that had VT-d capability also had vPro. The Helix's marketing materials certainly made a strong point about vPro capability, and a phone call to Lenovo helped me dig up the proper technical documentation to determine that the Helix does have VT-d support in its BIOS, Chipset, and Processor.

using vPro to remote control the bluescreen'd PC while the OS is halted, reboot it and go into the BIOS, and change the setting. All remotely, from 1000 miles away.

...really? Even on a Wi-Fi-only machine like the Helix? That's.... wow that's useful. I want that kind of stuff on my own machines... especially the fleet of immediate-family-owned computers that are more trouble to support than any enterprise machine I've been paid to lay my hands on :P

The reason I wanted VT-d support has to do with a bit of an epiphany that I had recently about the role of hypervisors in modern computing... I expect them to ultimately replace or supersede the role of firmware in pretty much every system we use. Xen, particularly with the existence of its XenARM branch, is moving this way. VT-d and AMD-Vi can facilitate this already---albeit not with the degree of reliability that enterprise standards require... yet---and more compliance with standards like SR- and MR-IOV will bring this to its full potential.

To illustrate, take the allure of VDI: Independent systems for each user, centrally managed with the ability to leverage datacenter-grade high availability and fault tolerance... but still subject to the same delivery restrictions of thin-client computing. Latency and bandwidth choke out the potential for true high-performance usage, and while server-grade processors pack extreme density per rack-unit of space, they lack the single-threaded performance of even modest desktop-grade chips. If instead of delivering only the video output, when a client connects we migrate the whole kit and caboodle directly to the machine in question and simply wholesale-expose the entire PCI bus to the guest OS. When the user shuts down or disconnects, we disconnect the PCI bus, and save state or migrate back into the datacenter instead.

Extending this to home computer use, I could migrate all of my machines off to my server instead of having to leave my desktop powered up all the time to get the functionality that I want. I could "lock" my desktop, "unlock" my Helix, and bam: I'm literally using the same computer. You or I might migrate to a local server, but one could see the average person migrating an OS into an AWS datacenter.

The allure is more grand for the case of ARM and Android. Lock your phone, throw it in a garbage disposal, whatever, then unlock your tablet: you're using the exact same OS that just "flew" over the WiFi, out of your pocket, and into the tablet.

I'm on a long tangent. Point is, it's a hell of a time to be a nerd :)

Re:Price Adjustment

[RulerOf]

I don't see any possibility of it become irrelevant that fast. There is nothing like Libre Office much less Dynamics or Sharepoint for tablets. There is nothing like Visual Studio. There isn't even anything like a complex web browser.

Tablets are very far behind.

You're absolutely right, but that's a difference in software. While it's definitely possible for Intel and Microsoft and others to bring the hardware around as a way of delivering that software into the tablet platform itself, cost-competitive hardware that makes this possible doesn't even exist yet. The gap can always be closed in the other direction. I think the iPad is proof of that!

Re:Price Adjustment

[jbolden]

Agreed. And Microsoft agrees with you too. It is a race to see if Android can cover more and more use cases fast enough to replace Windows or Windows can modernize fast enough to eliminate the need.

I wouldn't minimize those differences in software though. Those vertical applications cost many billions.

Re:Price Adjustment

[MachineShedFred]

There are some pretty cool things you can do with vPro / AMT 7.x. A demo I did at an annual gathering of divisional IT folk last year was the following, using a Win7 VM running on a MacBook Pro as my "admin machine" and then a Lenovo X220 as the client:

1. Manually provision vPro on the X220 by pressing ctrl+p at the EFI boot screen (this is the easy way, see below for better ways)
2. Rig the X220 to blue screen on boot by setting the SATA to "compatibility" mode after Windows was installed in AHCI mode
3. Power it off
4. Use the AMT power management engine's HTTP server to remote power up the X220
5. Watch it blue screen
6. Use RealVNC Plus to connect using vPro authentication to that PC
7. Confirm the connection by putting in the numeric code that pops up *over* the blue screen
8. Observe the blue screen in a VNC viewer window on the Win7 VM / Mac
9. Reboot the X220 remotely, and press F1 through the VNC session to enter EFI / BIOS
10. Fix the SATA setting, save changes, reboot
11. Observe the fixed Windows PC rebooting.
12. Remote mount a Solaris 11 Live ISO using RealVNC Plus
13. Remote reboot the X220 onto the ISO over the network, with the same VNC session still connected the whole way.

And yes, this works over Wireless* too, since having the vPro feature set means you also have a Centrino wireless adapter that the chipset can operate in a low power listen-only mode. It's very cool stuff, and largely OS independent. For larger installs (like an entire company, for example) you can set up a "Setup and Configuration Services" box (SCS) which allows you to create vPro configuration profiles which can be loaded en masse on compliant hardware via whatever software delivery agent you are using (Altiris / Tivoli / SCCM / ITMS / LANDesk / etc.) that allow for AD-authenticated access and different privileges.

Oh, and Intel also published PowerShell scripting additions so that you can make some front end utilities to simplify stuff for the monkeys at the help desk =)

*given a sane 802.11 network and no access restrictions disallowing peer-to-peer connectivity between hosts on the WLAN. Wireless config may only be available using SCS, and not the BIOS extension. I can't remember.

Linux?

[frisket]

Can I install Linux on one of these? Android?

Re:Linux?

[supersat]

No. The bootloader is locked down, and since there are code signing requirements for apps, you can't even run a VM.

Re:Linux?

[ArchieBunker]

Help me I am trying to swap my Ford engine for a Chevy and it won't fit!

Re:Linux?

[lister king of smeg]

I have wondered that myself, I know it requires a signed kernel and you can not turn off secure boot, but many distros are having Microsoft sign their kernels and bootloaders, ubuntu has paid the ms signing fee as I understand, so would it be possible to boot ubuntu on rt?

Re:Linux?

[sjames]

I have seen that done actually!

It seems that neither Ford nor Chevy go out of their way to make that any harder than it naturally is, unlike Microsoft.

Re:Linux?

[Charliemopps]

Yea, so for $350 these are still basically just expensive paperweights.

Re:Linux?

[oPless]

You can jailbreak all winRT devices.

Re:Linux?

[Billly Gates]

That is an attribute for apps you can set to run in jailbreak mode if I understand it correctly. Not a full hardware/OS jailbreak.

I really wish DRM and locked down devices were not the wave of the future and some law would prevent them? Android would rock as it has touch support and perhaps more people would be fiddling with WIndows 8 on other devices which would b ea plus for Windows RT marketshare.

But these things are so damn locked down that people wont buy htem. I am on a houldout with the PC for this reason even if I use WIndows 7. It is because I do not have to use an app store and can download and run free apps.

Re:Linux?

[Billly Gates]

More like the hood wielded shut and explosives inside to blow up the engine if you open it.

Re:Linux?

[Billly Gates]

There is a different key from ARM devices than for intel.

Also no one has the master or header keys. Just a resultant key certificate obtained from both.

Re:Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, engine swaps happen all the time. Probably a majority of pre WWII Fords still running sport a Chevy engine these days.

Lots of 1970's and 80's Jags get Chevy power too.

Then again, maybe Chevy small blocks are practically the Linux of the automotive power world.

Got an old car that don't run like she used to, put a Chevy 350 in it and get that snappy performance you were looking for with increased reliability and lots more options at reduced cost.

Re:Linux?

[msoftsucks]

Here's my answer to that!

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/

Never would I by defective equipment from the start.

Re:Linux?

[jbolden]

I like the FSF but I always felt that this campaign because it oversimplified the issues crossed the line into outright fraud. Far too many statements on defective by design are simply false.

Re:Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that any different then an iPad

Re: Linux?

[sjames]

You, in turn also have a strange idea of natural. If you had the same expectation about cars as you do about computers, you'd expect the hood welded shut, the engine block welded into the frame and special metals used such that a normal cutting torch would cause the car to catch fire.

Ford and Chevy do nothing to make it easier and they do nothing to make it harder. They certainly do not design a special subsystem to detect and reject a 'foreign' engine.

Re:Linux?

[sjames]

I agree that that is unacceptable behavior.

Re:Linux?

[mjwx]

Help me I am trying to swap my Ford engine for a Chevy and it won't fit!

Remove side panels and weld on supports until it fits. Replace drive train if need be. It's not like Ford locked down the chassis or the panels with Car Rights Management or anything.

Re:Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to buy a $350 paperweight, you might as well go with one that's actually popular and has a resale value?

Re:Linux?

[swb]

Probably a majority of pre WWII Fords still running sport a Chevy engine these days.

I can't imagine too many 1930s Ford owners wanting to run a Chevy engine over the Ford flathead V8 that likely came with the car. That would kind of be like going through the effort to keep a Sun running by swapping out the Sparc CPU with an Intel CPU.

I would generally agree that there are a lot of places where small block Chevy engines turn up, although the same has been true of a lot of Ford V8s, especially the 351 and 302, and the 427 ended up in a lot of non-car places, like boats (I can only imagine what it must sound like to be on a Chris Craft Commander with dual 427s).

Still overpriced

[waddgodd]

It's a first-gen hardware product from Microsoft, they should have to pay you for the headaches you're inevitably going to have

Re:Still overpriced

[roc97007]

Agree. The best thing for these devices is land fill. They have no purpose existing.

The hardware is interesting; it's the OS (Windows RT) that's sinking it. If we could figure out how to install something else, the device might get a new lease on life.

Re:Still overpriced

[oPless]

Agree. The best thing for these devices is land fill. They have no purpose existing.

The hardware is interesting; it's the OS (Windows RT) that's sinking it. If we could figure out how to install something else, the device might get a new lease on life.

You can jailbreak it. XDA Forums have a list of apps recompiled for it. You can also run powershell and .net apps.

Re:Still overpriced

[Billly Gates]

Except for the fact it does not have cell phone service nor a GPS unit. Even a crappy Nokia Windows phone for $199 have these which would make it a better and useful device. No google maps is bad too. IS there even a navigator? Oh heck with a gps you can't use it like that.

Save your cash and get a barebones PC with 4 gigs of ram, amd/ati gpu/cpu combo or an intel atom for $399. At least you can tinker to your hearts content on WIndows 7 or Linux without any locking bullshit if you want to play with a device or a raspbery pie

Re:Still overpriced

[John3]

It's a first-gen hardware product from a tech firm, they should have to pay you for the headaches you're inevitably going to have

FTFY

Re:Still overpriced

[waddgodd]

there's value in what you say, but Microsoft goes the extra mile and is notable in a field littered with horrid corpses of things that never should have been

Re:Still overpriced

[gl4ss]

But can it run linux?

no and the jailbreak is not technically root.

They are in such demand

[hsmith]

That microsoft has to slash the price to fight off people wanting to buy them?

Is that the correct spin?

Lets face it. Microsoft has tried to push the "Convertible laptop / tablet" on the market since 2000 (even before maybe?) - and no one wants it. They simply cannot grasp that it isn't what the consumer (even enterprise wants). People want tablets to consume content, not create it.

Re:They are in such demand

[supersat]

The only content you can create on the Surface are Office docs. And only personal content -- use of the included Office software for any organization (including non-profits) requires a separate, full Office license.

Re:They are in such demand

[Compuser]

That is not exactly true. I would want a Surface badly. However, the only version that has a worthwhile ecosystem of software is the Pro tablet (full Windows version). And the Pro tablet is about 4X overpriced.

If MS came to market with only 128Gb Surface pro, threw in a cover keyboard and priced the package at $300, then it would fly off the shelves. Just becuase they mis-priced the offering does not mean noone wants it.

Re:They are in such demand

[Dupple]

While it's quite possible to 'create' and do 'useful work' on a tablet it certainly seems more geared towards consumption. What Microsoft hasn't understood is that people use their software because they have to at work.

Office is not compelling. IE is not compelling. This is Microsofts attempt to move their monopoly to a new computing sector. It won't work. People don't want to use their software.

Re:They are in such demand

[Blaskowicz]

Well, I want coke to cost 1 euro per gram, also retail Windows 8 should cost 10 euros and Windows Server 2012 Datacenter would cost 80 euros at most (granting you a license to install on 15 physical machines).
That's not possible yet, so an option is to get drunk with red wine and use linux.

Re:They are in such demand

[roc97007]

That is not exactly true. I would want a Surface badly. However, the only version that has a worthwhile ecosystem of software is the Pro tablet (full Windows version). And the Pro tablet is about 4X overpriced.

If MS came to market with only 128Gb Surface pro, threw in a cover keyboard and priced the package at $300, then it would fly off the shelves. Just becuase they mis-priced the offering does not mean noone wants it.

True for the most part, although you still have to deal with Windows 8. Throw in Win7 and it's a deal.

Re:They are in such demand

[ericloewe]

300 bucks pays for the processor and the screen, maybe. Your expectations are unreasonable.

Re:They are in such demand

[spire3661]

Microsoft's understanding of the market is what is unreasonable. This thing should be dirt cheap. It is badly engineered and for the realities of the current market. RT was MS doing what MS always does, pulling its deformed dick out and expecting us to marvel at it.

Re:They are in such demand

[Lunix Nutcase]

For it to be "dirt cheap" means you lose most of its specs.

Re:They are in such demand

[XaXXon]

The goal of a company isn't to move units, it's to make money. Saying they could move units if they sold them -- what amounts to basically giving them away -- isn't a revelation.

Re:They are in such demand

[markdavis]

>"This is Microsofts attempt to move their monopoly to a new computing sector. It won't work. People don't want to use their software."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Microsoft simply does not understand that their "popularity" in the computing market is mostly due due to their proprietary lock-in, and not due to free market choice and preference.

I bet if they offered IDENTICAL hardware to all the Android and IOS tablets for an IDENTICAL price, they still would not be able to sell enough to matter.

Re:They are in such demand

[spire3661]

Thus the 'badly engineered' part. MS made a product that cannot survive in the current ecosystem. Bad design.

Re:They are in such demand

[Billly Gates]

Windows 7 while a better OS does not have the near touch support that 8 does nor the power saving optimizations and tuning.

You can thank Sinofsky for killing the touch enhancements in the final RC of Windows 7. I think he was already eying WIndows 8 back then.

Re:They are in such demand

[jbolden]

At $300 it would be well under the cost of the hardware. One can talk about price but $300 is out of the question.

Re:They are in such demand

[Billly Gates]

The idea is to make $$$$ off the Windows Store like what Apple does. 30% profit margin is damn insane if you ask me!

So in a world 10 years from now where every device is a tablet and even offices use monitor and keyboard docking stations hooked to their tablets this means Microsoft makes 30% off of every piece of software sold!

New Oracle installation costs $500,000? MS makes $150,000 cha-ching! Adobe upgrade for your marketing team 10 users x $700 each = $7.000. That is $2100 more money cha-ching!

It makes perfect sense while they do not care if it is a loss leader. Think about how much money MS will make after taxing the whole I.T. industry 30% through the app store?

Re:They are in such demand

[AmiMoJo]

Who else does a reasonable spec tablet with 128GB of storage for $300?

You should be comparing it to cheap laptops, not cheap tablets. That's basically what you want - a small laptop with touchscreen and detachable keyboard. Finding a reasonable quality one with 128GB of storage for $300 may again prove challenging.

Re:They are in such demand

[ericloewe]

The surface Pro will never drop to 300 bucks. It can't be done with a high-quality screen and an Intel Core i5. Just because you won't pay ~1000 bucks for it doesn't mean others won't - it's a very interesting device for certain niches and can easily be developed (Haswell would vastly improve battery life in many situations, for starters) into a strong ultraportable-competitor.

Re:They are in such demand

[ralphaostrander]

That is priced twice as much as an apple tablet, is it twice as good? It is not just competing for laptop users. If I were buying now it would not be this, it would be mac air. At half its price I would give it a look. Sorry I am not made of money.

Re:They are in such demand

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Pro tablet is about 4X overpriced

You think a tablet with a 1080p display, Wacom digitizer with pen included, Core i5 processor, USB 3.0, 64 GB of solid state storage that runs x86-64 Windows and weighs 2 lbs should cost $300?

Your bias is embarrassing, and I'm calling bullshit on you actually wanting a Surface.

Re:They are in such demand

[spire3661]

I was talking about RT. Surface Pro is a nice piece of kit, even if it comes with Win 8. I am actually waiting on the Haswell refresh before i look into a Surface Pro, but its on my radar for sure.

Re:They are in such demand

[roc97007]

Windows 7 while a better OS does not have the near touch support that 8 does nor the power saving optimizations and tuning.

You can thank Sinofsky for killing the touch enhancements in the final RC of Windows 7. I think he was already eying WIndows 8 back then.

The thing is, I already have Windows 8 on a laptop (asus) with a touch screen, and it's pants. At least with Windows 7, I'd be able to use it as a laptop, minus the touch screen. With Windows 8, well, I may be able to use it for content consumption, if I did a lot of that, which I don't. But it's too clumsy for content creation.

Re:They are in such demand

[v1]

They're YEARS late to the show. Tardiness to the tech market always comes with a big price. Their only hope at this point would have been to sell them at a loss just to get a small, valuable slice of market share.

MS has been doing this a lot recently with hardware. If you're going to go to-to-toe with Apple etc you have to outprice them because you're going to have difficulty outfeaturing them and simply not going to be able to (initially) out-perform them. The #1 reason cited by MS fanboys is "apple is too expensive for what you get". MS simply won't be able to get its foot in the door if they leave their biggest edge just sitting on the bench. And it'll go the way of the zune, phone, tv, etc. You'd think by now they'd have learned this lesson??

Re:They are in such demand

[gmhowell]

Well, I want coke to cost 1 euro per gram, also retail Windows 8 should cost 10 euros and Windows Server 2012 Datacenter would cost 80 euros at most (granting you a license to install on 15 physical machines).
That's not possible yet, so an option is to get drunk with red wine and use linux.

I believe Apple is the red wine option whereas Linux is hooch from a homemade still.

Personally, I'm waiting for another band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.

Re:They are in such demand

[BlueStraggler]

The #1 reason cited by MS fanboys is "apple is too expensive for what you get".

In the 1990s, maybe. And that's because Microsoft commoditized the hardware, thereby transferring the PC industry profits to themselves as the only company left in the stack that could still charge a significant margin. Apple lost that war, was forced to switch to the hardware platform that Microsoft commoditized, and now that things are pretty much even on that score, now it's Microsoft that is too expensive for what you get.

Re:They are in such demand

[jbolden]

There were about 120m tablets sold in 2012 growing quickly. For Microsoft to give a $250 subsidy for even 40m tablets for 5 years would cost $50b. At $10 license it would take them 5b licenses to make that subsidy back.

They are better losing than doing a subsidy like that. The loss like that isn't close to worth it.

Re:They are in such demand

[pbjones]

to make it a laptop you need the keyboard/cover, which didn't drop it's overpricedness. Still it is attractive without the cover.

Re:They are in such demand

[Horshu]

Odds are, they're about to announce Surface 2, hence the price drop.

Re:They are in such demand

[readingaccount]

I see I was downvoted (slightly anyway). I should probably mention that I use LibreOffice Writer, both at home and at work (though I definitely use MS Word at work a lot when it calls for it - Writer is mostly there to improve muscle memory for various features when I get back home). I kinda like LO - it's the only truly cross-platform office package out there which is even slightly close to Microsoft's offering, which is why I support it and use it when I can.

BUT... my needs of an Official application are for the most part fairly rudimentary. For someone who lives and breathes MS Office every day and knows how to use it to its fullest to make amazing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, making them use LibreOffice instead would be an exercise in frustration, and trying to admit anything else is just being dishonest about its limitation.

Re:They are in such demand

[mjwx]

Well, I want coke to cost 1 euro per gram, also retail Windows 8 should cost 10 euros and Windows Server 2012 Datacenter would cost 80 euros at most (granting you a license to install on 15 physical machines).
That's not possible yet, so an option is to get drunk with red wine and use linux.

I believe Apple is the red wine option whereas Linux is hooch from a homemade still.

Not quite, Linux is a microbrew, there are hundreds about, some good, some bad and a rare few absolutely brilliant.

Apple is four penny dark (cheap red wine) that is bought in a cask (box), re-bottled with a fancy label and sold for top shelf prices. In the end it's still cheap wine, it just costs more.

Windows is the mainstream beers. Harsh to drink, no to bad taste but enough ABV to get the job done.

Re:They are in such demand

[cbhacking]

The Pro already sells just fine (contrary to Slashdot's never-with-citations snide comments; I know folks who work at MS (comes of being in the tech industry in this part of the country) and they have trouble keeping the up with demand. You can't buy a big clunky laptop with the Surface Pro's SSD, CPU, RAM, and resolution for $300 (I doubt you could get it for $600); are you insane? Throw in the capacitive touchscreen and Wacom stylus digitizer, ultra-thin keyboard, lightweight but absurdly durable vapor-deposited magnesium chassis, USB3, dual webcams, etc. and... yeah, no. The total manufacturing price is probably still well under $1000, but after all the additional expences of getting a product to market, $1200 is a good deal at that price.

Obviously, it might not be a good deal that you personally are interested in, but you do not represent the whole market. For people who want a portable, durable, and powerful computer usable either as a tablet or a laptop - and they do exist, for sure - it's an excellent price. The market is bearing it admirably.

RT... not so much. The hardware is excellent, but the OS really is stupid. By changing a single flag in the kernel, they could remove the "MS-signed-only" restriction from desktop apps (there has been a hack out there for months which does it for you at bootup). They could add "desktop apps compiled for ARM" to the already-existing dekstop apps (for x86) section of the store, in addition to the Metro-style apps. They could include an x86 dynamic recompilation layer - a single volunteer developer has hacked up a pretty good basic one already, and the stuff he's having trouble with is the stuff that MS (with their access to the Windows source code) could fix trivially - for running old or simple x86 apps without recompilation (since it thunks to the native ARM system libraries where possible, the performance is much better than one might expect, though still years behind modern x86).

Microsoft seems determined to drive that platform into the ground, though.

Re:They are in such demand

[gl4ss]

well according to folks working at ms windows phone is selling excellent. keeping up with the demand is just function of not having ramped up production in the first place..

Re:They are in such demand

[ericloewe]

Oh, small confusion there then: I was talking about Compuser's wish for a 300 buck Surface Pro with 128GB and keyboard.

As for the regular surface, it's a nice device from a build quality standpoint, and that's about the extent of its advantages. A regular surface with Atom would make for an interesting device, though, like the low-end Samsung Ativ Smart PC.

Re:They are in such demand

[MachineShedFred]

You realize that your $300 price barely covers the Intel CPU, right?

If it's running Windows for x86 / x64, Microsoft cannot lock you into their app store to subsidize hardware losses with software sales (the XBox model). They can do that with Windows RT, so they can cut the prices down and hope to gain it back on the software.

The real issue here is that Windows RT is an answer to a question nobody asked. They'll continue slashing the prices until they get dangerously close to "we can't even give them away" at which point they will just quietly cancel it. Much like their other embedded / portable failures of the past.

Re:They are in such demand

[nosfucious]

Observation from the trenches. Tablets popularity is two-fold: (1) instant on, and (2) consumption.

Instant on, is just to satisfy a need NOW. I want to look up google, tube8, /., or whatever. NOW. The PC boots too slow: not just windows, but inevitable bloat (A-V, every applicaiton loading a launch utility).

90% of all PC use (outside of the office) is about consumption. Entertainment, web, simple email and basic word processing/calculation use. Most office use is simple docs, perhaps a green screen ap (unix, midrange, etc), plus MS-Office use.

99% of non-tech users don't know propriety lock in from swiss cheese.

Re:They are in such demand

[roc97007]

7 isn't touch compatible.

Correct. (7 pro purports to be "touch ready" but it's really just a rebranding of the Accessibility tools.) But at least running 7 it could be used as a regular laptop. With 8, it's well, it's an audio and video player if you care to muck with it and don't mind a somewhat aggravating experience, but it's not really a laptop.

Re:They are in such demand

[gmhowell]

I like your analysis and will shamelessly steal it for future use.

Re:They are in such demand

[Compuser]

Samsung Note 8 is fast and capable and has a stylus with 16Gb. Microsoft's problem is that to make a similarly capable tablet they need 128Gb and a beefy processor. At which point the cost to manufacture becomes prohibitive.
So you can see their failure either as one of not bringing costs down or as one of not making Windows more lightweight. Either way, competing exclusively on the high end is a losing strategy. MS needs a fully functional device at a $300 price point.

serious problem

[phantomfive]

I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"

Really, if those people joined together they might be able fill a Starbucks. Imagine if they started a protest against Microsoft, the damage they could do......

Microsoft will do the same thing they did when they came out with the Zune to help all those people who bought "Plays For Sure" music, nothing at all.

Re:serious problem

[tsa]

OK but when Microsoft says it "Plays for sure" you can be sure that it doesn't, otherwise they wouldn't put so much emphasis on a simple thing like playing music.

Re:serious problem

[roc97007]

OK but when Microsoft says it "Plays for sure" you can be sure that it doesn't, otherwise they wouldn't put so much emphasis on a simple thing like playing music.

...and now the Microsoft marketing guys are overusing the phrase "it just works". Hmm.

Re:serious problem

[spire3661]

Plays for Sure , god i love the schadenfreude that whole fiasco provides me to this day. I knew the instant it was announced it was doomed to failure.

Re:serious problem

[gmhowell]

OK but when Microsoft says it "Plays for sure" you can be sure that it doesn't, otherwise they wouldn't put so much emphasis on a simple thing like playing music.

"Plays for sure" is what MS Translate spits out when you enter "arbeit macht frei."

Re:serious problem

[a_mari_usque_ad_mare]

And now the Zune hardware and online service have been replaced by Xbox music, which despite the name has nothing really to do with the Xbox. I've been listening to it on my Windows 8 install as you get to listen to a certain amount for free.

There's nothing really wrong with it, it has a good selection of popular music and seems to work. It is however only available on Windows 8 and Windows. It's also identified on your metro start screen as "music" and a solid green square, so even people who use Windows 8 (the few, the proud, etc.) can be forgiven for not knowing it exists.

Re:serious problem

[phantomfive]

I'll check it out, thanks

Re:serious problem

[Sporkinum]

I ended up uninstalling Xbox music because it would stop playing while I was playing my own mp3 files. I can understand that if I were streaming, but I wasn't.

What Microsoft will do about previous customers?

[cold fjord]

Cash the check.

People who bought prior to price drop

[mysidia]

I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?

MS should do nothing. They were among the few people to buy something above the value the market would ultimately be willing to accept.

This is not Microsoft's responsibility to deal with.

When you buy something, you should be doing your due diligence to make sure you are getting more in product value than cash value you are trading for it.

If you make a bad trade: it's not the manufacturer's duty to try and console you about your decisionmaking error.

Re:People who bought prior to price drop

[roc97007]

I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?

MS should do nothing. They were among the few people to buy something above the value the market would ultimately be willing to accept.

This is not Microsoft's responsibility to deal with.

When you buy something, you should be doing your due diligence to make sure you are getting more in product value than cash value you are trading for it.

If you make a bad trade: it's not the manufacturer's duty to try and console you about your decisionmaking error.

Agreed. In all fairness, I feel the same about the iphone. I appear to be alone in that, though.

Re:People who bought prior to price drop

[isdnip]

I agree. Folks who paid the higher price must have felt it was worth it to them.

Both of them.

Bad math

[Dan East]

the price of the 32-gig Surface RT plummeted by 42%

That's wrong - the price has been reduced by 30%. The new price of the 32 gig Surface is $349. The original price was $499 (the price of all models is being reduced by $150). You divide the discount by the original price, not the new reduced price, to find the percentage reduction. 150/499=30% (150/349 is indeed 42%, but that is meaningless in this case)

Re:Bad math

[roc97007]

> The new price of the 32 gig Surface is $349.

It's STILL that high? Why is this even news? "Today the Surface RT went from really stupendously overpriced to merely shockingly overpriced." Move along, nothing to see here.

Re:Bad math

[wonkey_monkey]

It's a reduction to 70% of list price, but a reduction by 30% from list price. I would argue that the commonly understood meaning of "70% reduction" would be a reduction by 70% from, not to/of.

Re:Bad math

[alexhs]

"Today the Surface RT went from really stupendously overpriced to merely shockingly overpriced."

To paraphrase a sketch of François Pérusse :
- Our daughter needs a tablet, we could go to the Microsoft Store ? We're just in front of it.
- No, they're three times as expensive as any of their competitors.
- No, look, they have sales.
- "Super sales, all prices reduced to two times as expensive as any of our competitors."
- You see ?
- That's better.

Re:Bad math

[MachineShedFred]

Time to take a remedial math course. Your 7th grade multiplication skills are lacking.

Re:Is it possible to run Linux on these?

[phantomfive]

After the price cut, it still costs $349 for the cheapest model. Might as well get a ipad mini, or Galaxy Tab if you want Linux.

Cough.. HP Touchpad Cough...

[maudface]

This remind people of anything much?

Entirely unsurprising, good riddance.

Re:Cough.. HP Touchpad Cough...

[bored]

The difference with the touchpad is that the fire-sale price was 1/2 to 1/3 of these devices.

Furthermore, it wasn't nearly as locked down. There are some fairly nice android distributions for the touchpad, and it was as easy to root as typing "webos20090606" into the search bar. Plus, there is a fairly large homebrew community, providing everything from an xserver and ubuntu like environments to popular game emulators (NES/etc) allowing access to large catalogs of applications not originally written for the device.

Best darn $250 i've spent in years (I got one with a touchstone, case and keyboard), as I also provide one of the more popular applications in the app store and its more than paid for the device and the few dozen hours I spent porting/writting the app.

Re:Cough.. HP Touchpad Cough...

[roc97007]

The difference is, HP intentionally killed the Touchpad. They bought the IP, released the product, and then lost their nerve. This is almost the opposite of what is happening with the RT.

Re:Cough.. HP Touchpad Cough...

[spire3661]

R.I.P. WebOS.

Re:Cough.. HP Touchpad Cough...

[roc97007]

The difference is, HP intentionally killed the Touchpad.

How do you know that is really a difference at all...

I started to write, because Microsoft wouldn't... and then I started to write, because that'd be suicide... and then I thought, hmm. I can't come up with a good answer to that.

Re:Cough.. HP Touchpad Cough...

[cbhacking]

There's a pretty good selection of "homebrew" for RT as well, including a lot of game emulators and also older open-sourced Windows games. Also, while the kernel and bootloader are indeed more locked down than the Touchpad, the userspace is actually more permissive; elevation to Admin rights is done through UAC as usual, and the typical Windows admin tools (policy editors, registry editor, MMC snap-ins for everything from device manager to certificates, powershell, the legacy control panel, and so on) are all present.

Of course, the desktop app signature restriction is in the kernel, which makes the jailbreak hack necessary. Fortunately, it's extremely easy to find, download, and use.

Nothing?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?

I'm sure they'll both be very upset.

Better idea - inform the consumer

[Picass0]

Right now MS adverts for the surface are nothing more than hipster dipshits dancing on a boardroom table and spining the Surface around. There is nothing infomative, nothing to tell the consumer why they might consider purchasing this vs. an Ipad or a decent Android tablet.

MS can't act like Apple. People already know why they might like to have an iPad. They either own one or have a fiend who does. Surface doesn't have familiarity to fall back on. It looks like an overgrown Zune and unless MS tells people otherwise they will assume it's just an "also ran" in the tablet race.

Slashing prices it nice but it reaks of desperation. I might be tempted to think they are dumping existing inventory prior to dropping the product line.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, you've hit the nail on the head. The marketing strategy for the Surface sucks, which is sad because it's actually a worthwhile bit of hardware, and very different from the iPad and other tablets you might find. If they would bother to educate the consumer about the differences they would doubtless sell a lot more of them.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[roc97007]

Right now MS adverts for the surface are nothing more than hipster dipshits dancing on a boardroom table and spining the Surface around. There is nothing infomative, nothing to tell the consumer why they might consider purchasing this vs. an Ipad or a decent Android tablet.

I have come to suspect the reason for this is that there is no reason to purchase this device, and they know it.

MS can't act like Apple. People already know why they might like to have an iPad. They either own one or have a fiend who does. Surface doesn't have familiarity to fall back on. It looks like an overgrown Zune and unless MS tells people otherwise they will assume it's just an "also ran" in the tablet race.

Slashing prices it nice but it reaks of desperation. I might be tempted to think they are dumping existing inventory prior to dropping the product line.

Oh, MS *can* act like Apple in this way, and I would fully expect them to. For a long long time, Microsoft ruled certain segments of the market, (still does, in fact) and "you'll buy it because it's Windows" has been ingrained in Microsoft corporate culture for so long that they can't help but continue to act like that, even in areas where it's clearly not working for them. It'd take a complete revamp of the culture in order to act differently.

Not only does the price drop smell like desperation, I suspect it's actually damaging in the long run, for the reasons you mention.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[jfruh]

Right now MS adverts for the surface are nothing more than hipster dipshits dancing on a boardroom table and spining the Surface around ... MS can't act like Apple.

iPad and iPhone ads are actually pretty good about showing you in succinct ways what you can do with the product. They're usually made up of quick, targeted clips of apps in use. It's kind of flabbergasted me that Microsoft hasn't done the same thing with their TV ads, especially when it comes to Office. It's almost as if their marketing dept. came to the conclusion that "We have to fight Apple on their own terms" without actually sitting down to watch how Apple markets its products.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[93 Escort Wagon]

It's not really news that a Microsoft marketing strategy sucks. For such a big, rich company - they sure don't seem to know how to pick a decent ad agency.

Actually that's not really fair to the agencies involved. I know someone who has worked on numerous product launch campaigns for Microsoft. According to him, invariably someone high up at Microsoft screws up the campaign by insisting something irrelevant be included, some unimportant feature be given the main highlight... or even rewriting the entire campaign themselves! It really sounds bizarre. It used to bother him, but since he's a freelancer and they pay really well, he's learned to live with it (and gets professional fulfillment from the work he does for *other* companies).

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[ffejie]

These ads seem to be everywhere for me. Isn't this what you're advocating for? Less talking.

I think the ads are quite effective, but I still don't know anyone who has a Surface.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[ffejie]

iPad and iPhone ads are actually pretty good about showing you in succinct ways what you can do with the product.

They were solely focused on use cases, until these series of ads came out. Our signature. I find these ads ridiculously pretentious. Apple has earned that right to be pretentious, but I do wish they went back to their old style of showing the product doing something cool.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[ffejie]

On second view, these are actually Windows 8 ads, showing an Asus tablet ... whoops.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[roc97007]

> It's kind of flabbergasted me that Microsoft hasn't done the same thing with their TV ads

I'm not surprised at all. It's not possible to demonstrate actually apps and not have the consumer coming away thinking "it's just like Windows, only smaller".

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[Picass0]

Holy shit that's painful. I got one minute into that before I had to click on the parody instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-jJ0LkTOMQ

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[Kaenneth]

Correct, People who what a fashion accessory will by Apple, People who want something to tinker with Linux, and people who want to accomplish real work Microsoft.

It's like Chevy advertising a truck in Tiger Beat.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[norite]

Oh. My. God.....

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[rochrist]

The spinning hipster douchenozzle ad is incredibly painful. I want to shoot each and everyone of them in the face.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[rochrist]

Riiigggghhhtttt.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[Picass0]

>> "I find these ads ridiculously pretentious"

To the extent they are emotionally manipulative I'd agree, but they're light years better than the choreographed hip-hop dancing in the Surface ad. Little to none in the 'product knowledge' category. In the MS ad I see dancing, the "kickstand on the back of the device, the cover/keyboard, and fleeting glances at the screen. Surface has a user interface (Metro) that MS just removed from it's desktop OS. That's a loud message. MS nearly apologised for Metro on the desktop but they expect people to want this on a tablet?

Even in the Apple "signature" ad I can draw the conclusion of using Apple products to video chat, listen to music, take pictures and do creative things. The commercial is sappy but it does tell people something.

Apple's emotional advertising is due to their stock price taking a pounding. They have no new killer app or product in the wings. A new iOS and that strange little Mac Pro aren't going to find love on Wall Street. Apple is in a position of selling you stuff you're seen many times and have very likely used or own in an earlier form. There are no suprises or "one more thing" to spring on you. I have to guess it's becoming hard to sell iPods/iTouch devices.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[Picass0]

That's not at all what I said, but nice try to inject your adenda into a discussion.

Re:Better idea - inform the consumer

[Zero__Kelvin]

Someday you should learn about this Linux thing everyone here keeps talking about. You have incorrectly identified it is a toy with which people tinker. In reality, it is the OS real professionals use to get real work done. Also, you seem to think the words "work" and "gaming" are synonymous. They aren't.

Not the Balmer!

[Ian A. Shill]

I am no Steve Ballmer (I can never decide where to put the chairs). I would however, be well prepared for the meeting tomorrow morning. My suggestion would be a nice thank-you card and a voucher for a free upgraded ultra-sensitive microphone for your XBox One.

I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"

Re:Not the Balmer!

[roc97007]

I am no Steve Ballmer (I can never decide where to put the chairs). I would however, be well prepared for the meeting tomorrow morning. My suggestion would be a nice thank-you card and a voucher for a free upgraded ultra-sensitive microphone for your XBox One.

I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"

God, that's funny. I just had an epiphany. When it's time to rearrange the deck chairs (think about it...) Ballmer will have gotten good enough to just toss them to the correct spot.

Re:Not the Balmer!

[cyber-vandal]

I want to know where the flying chairs screensaver and the Ballmer as Donkey Kong throwing chairs are. Surely someone talented has had the same ideas I have.

WOOT!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Just wait... $149, nine months from now.

Re:WOOT!

[roc97007]

Just wait... $149, nine months from now.

And by then, someone will have worked out how to install Android on it.

Re:WOOT!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Ubuntu or other acceptable touch-packaging of Deb.

At $39.99, they'll be a total bargain

[tutufan]

But until then, they're kind of pitiful...

Re:At $39.99, they'll be a total bargain

[1s44c]

Why pay $39.99 for something to squash spiders when you can buy a large book for less?

Re:At $39.99, they'll be a total bargain

[tutufan]

I want my spider-squasher to be cloud-ready...

perfect product, how could u not want it

[Anonymous Coward]

They took their familiar desktop user interface millions of content creators know well and changed it to the Metro tile thing. Brilliant!
They took the OS which was wedded to x86 and moved parts of it to the ARM architecture. Content creators applications don't run on ARM.
They took the laptop content creators know and made it a touch based tablet based on an ARM SoC. Brilliant!
They created a magnetic keyboard to add to the tablet so people can have a keyboard like a laptop but it costs extra. Brilliant!
They advertise the product as cool because it makes a clicking sound when you put the keyboard on the tablet and pretend it is a laptop. But it's not a laptop because content creators applications don't run on it.

How could they lose?

Re:perfect product, how could u not want it

[tepples]

They took the OS which was wedded to x86 and moved parts of it to the ARM architecture. Content creators applications don't run on ARM.
They took the laptop content creators know and made it a touch based tablet based on an ARM SoC. Brilliant!

A lot of Slashdot users appear to be under the impression that the majority of individuals are not, and have no desire ever to become, producers of original works of authorship at home. A lot of manufacturers see the market of people who only view works as bigger than the market of producers. So they segment the market between devices locked down to run only applications for viewing works and substantially more expensive devices that lack this lock. This has been the model in living room video games for nearly the past three decades.

Translation:

[1s44c]

"Everything else failed, lets sell them at cost price."

Re:Translation:

[roc97007]

"Everything else failed, lets sell them at cost price."

But but but... did they really cost $350 to produce? Cost must have been lower than that, right?

Re:What Microsoft will do about previous customers

[houghi]

Funny? I would say "Obviously." If I do a purchase, I pay the price at that moment, not the price of yesterday. Not the price of tomorrow.
If you want to pay less for your hardware, all you have to do is wait.

For those who say that there are no stupid questions, here is the exception on that rule.

slashvertising

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just an advertisement for a sale, including where to buy them.

I am extra suspicious about an MS stories here, after this:
"Longtime Microsoft Booster Becomes Senior Editor at Slashdot"
http://techrights.org/2013/07/11/slashdot-nicholas-kolakowski/
Beware of increasing MS astroturfing around here!

Re:Oh wow!

[symbolset]

This is the submit story button. It doesn't render properly on the /. page for IE users, nor for users on Microsoft's /8 IP block. This is a bug in the slashcode introduced during the Get The Facts campaign and it helps cut down on spam submissions. When you get home install a proper browser and click on it regularly, and suddenly slashdot articles will be more to your liking.

Re:Awesome!

[93 Escort Wagon]

$349 is a lot to spend just for Outlook.

Not yet cheap enough to build a Beowolf Cluster

[jfdavis668]

But imagine the one you could build!

Still costs $449 or $549

[Blaskowicz]

If you want the plastic keyboard shown in ads, that's $100 and if you want 64GB flash instead of 32GB that's another $100 (dunno if the tablet has micro SD?)

That can be serious desktop or laptop money. For instance here's a 11.6" laptop with ivy bridge Celeron, 240GB flash, bluetooth 4.0 for about what a keyboard + 64GB Surface costs.

Re:Still costs $449 or $549

[spire3661]

That Ivy Bridge Celeron comes with VT-x and much stronger graphics as well. I have played Bioshock Infinite on my Celeron 1610 (33 fps 720p/low)

Re:Still costs $449 or $549

[cbhacking]

Yes, they come with a microSDXC slot. Installing apps to it isn't strictly supported (although you can do it pretty easily using symlinks or junctions) but it's fine for media or (jailbroken & recompiled) desktop applications

Sad thing is

[obarthelemy]

Even at that price, I'd probably not buy a Surface-RT if my current Android broke. And looking around me, I find nobody I'd recommend it to: you have to
- need Office
- but no other Windows App because those don't run on RT (bneither does AD, Outlook... none of the "pro" stuff)
- and no other serious App in general, because Win8-RT is still missing a *good* apps for the basics (RSS, dlna, multi-format video player, etc etc)
- no games except a handful
- not want 7", nor any weird stuff (phone with your 3G...)
- be able to make do with a quite retarded OS. I've just finished setting up a "metro" Win8 desktop for the 'rents; Metro is a compendium of UI miscues, functionality holes, and bugs. Live tiles are semi-nice, until you realize there's about 8 of them, of which 4 are useless. Not even a *clock* for chrissake.
- be able to cope not only with random featuritis (hey, let's make IE metro-like when it's the default browser, and not Metro-like when it isn't), but also random de-featuritis (hey, now that people have gotten used to Facebook photos on their screensaver, let's cut that !)

Last time I had to deal with MS in mobile, they explained to me nicely that no, my (just bought) HTC HD2 coudln't synch with my (just bought) Windows computer, that it was normal, and that there were no plans to make the 2 sync. I dropped them right there, and they're staying dropped until they come up with something Real Good. Win8, Win8 RT, and the Surfaces certainly aren't it. Even the Nokia cameras aren't.

HP TouchPads...

[gQuigs]

This is what happened right before HP gave up on tablets...

Re:Awesome!

[roc97007]

That's a fantastic deal, especially now that RT devices come with Outlook. I need to pick one of these up.

But... didn't the company issue you one?

I can tell you

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"

The same thing they will do for customers who purchased a tablet right after the price drop

How about a free brown Zune?

[dottrap]

"I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"

Microsoft has great products they can use to compensate those early adopters.

How about a brown Zune?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune#Sales)

Or maybe a WebTV?
(http://slashdot.org/story/13/07/07/1224244/microsoft-says-goodbye-to-webtvmsn-tv)

Well Zune Pass has got to work (ForSure)!

Re:How about a free brown Zune?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Microsoft gave 1 of these to every employee, in '07 or '08.

Guess what that looked like, to inventories shipped figures?

Then, they packed 'em with field content, and had Enterprise Sales forklift even more of them gratis, on the loading docks of renewal accounts.

Apple's hardware and business model worked SO WELL for them. Why didn't a repro by Microsoft do EVEN BETTER? ;-)

Re:How about a free brown Zune?

[cbhacking]

Zune Pass, aside from being renamed to Xbox Music, is alive and well. The ability to access it is built into Xboxes (XB1 and XB360), all Windows Phone devices, and all Windows 8 / Windows RT systems (minus a few that come without the default media playback software installed per EU requirements, but they can install it for free). The Zune hardware, and most of the brand, may be discontinued, but the music pass is very much still around.

Oh, and it doesn't use PlayForSure. I realize you were going for (and got) funny mods, and at this point I'm mostly being pedantic because I really have no idea what the difference between PFS and PlayReady is, but that's the name of the new scheme.

Obligatory question

[frovingslosh]

But will it run Android?

Re:Obligatory question

[pbjones]

Not really, but you can buy cheaper Android tablets.

Still don't see a use for it

[Sarusa]

Even at $350, as someone who uses Windows primarily on desktop and laptop (okay, Linux on servers), I just can't see what I'd do with it. Drop the Surface Pro down to that price and now I'm interested.

Apparently not in UK

[KZigurs]

Still priced above iPad. Not to say anything against the Surface, but it'll only become a viable product at around £200 or so. Anything above just prices it out of the market.

Only the RT

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft Slashes Prices On Surface" - Asshat. This is the crippled version of the Surface ie. not Pro, and a terrible idea to begin with.

Re:Awesome!

[dingen]

350 bucks for an e-mail reading machine? Really?

You really need that 64 GB version too

[dingen]

Because of how bloated Windows 8 is, a serious chunk of storage space isn't available at all to the user. You might think 32 GB oughta be enough for anyone, but half of that is reserved for the system.

According to Microsoft:

* The 32 GB version has approximately 15 GB free hard disk space.
* The 64 GB version has approximately 45 GB free hard disk space.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/storage-files-and-folders/surface-disk-space-faq

Still using my touchpad (running android)

[Chirs]

My touchpad is running CM9 and still going strong. Even now it's got some of the best-sounding speakers of any tablet out there...which is kind of sad. The inductive charging is awesome, too.

I can get a case of Coke for $6.99

[tepples]

Well, I want coke to cost 1 euro per gram

In the United States, a case of twenty-four 355 ml aluminum containers of Coke costs $6.99.

so an option is to get drunk with red wine and use linux.

That or just use Linux and run Wine on top of it.

Re:I can get a case of Coke for $6.99

[rossdee]

"In the United States, a case of twenty-four 355 ml aluminum containers of Coke costs $6.99."

When its on special you can get 2 litre bottles 4 for $5

But I think this weeks specials are Pepsi/Mt Dew

( I don't drink coke or Pepsi - I drink Mt Dew, Mello Yello or Sun Drop (A&W's citrus flavoured caffinated pop)

Re:Oh wow!

[tepples]

When you get home install a proper browser

I thought one of the problems with both the iPad and the Surface RT was that the operating system used cryptographic lockdown to prevent the user from installing a proper browser and making it the default.

can't givem away...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even at a 43% discount I doubt they can pull those out of the competitive fire. IPADs for some that can afford them but Android's got the affordable tablet market sewed up.

Microsoft wants to be Apple

[readingaccount]

Microsoft desperately wants to be Apple, that much should be obvious by now. With all the dancing hipster ads for Surface trying to appear cool and in touch, it just... doesn't... work.

Microsoft still has something of a business/corporate reputation. They make operating systems to run Office on, to perform spreadsheet work, boring but necessary work. That's their image. Apple deliberately target non-business customers in the vast majority of their products and marketing - they have for a while now and that is THEIR image. Microsoft can't just try to perform a 180 and appear like Apple - that's like a 50 year old Steve Buscemi trying to act hip to young people by saying "How do you do, fellow kids?" It's comedic when done by an actor - but embarrassing when done by a corporation.

They say a business must grow or die. Microsoft have reached the limits of desktop operating systems - they've owned their sector for so long that they can't grow in it. That's fine, go for it. But emulating Apple when there already IS an Apple is not a strategy for a leader to take.

Windows needs new branding

[hodet]

Windows in the consumer space is boring. Most people do not want a windows tablet or windows phone, because it represents that old boring desktop software to them. I think Windows should live on as the companies enterprise brand because the enterprise likes safe and boring and will continue to pay big bucks for that. What the consumer wants is exciting and edgy and that is why I think their consumer products just need a total rebranding. I am not a marketing guy, I am an IT guy, but it just seems obvious to me that they should dump the windows name for the consumer space. Since Xbox seems to have some traction maybe they could brand around that theme in some way for all consumer devices. But what the hell do I know, I am just a cubicle shmuck and maybe I don't get it, but Microsoft has proven without a doubt that they don't either.

its cheap but...

[Pathoth]

Even if you could get them for free, why would you ever want one?

Re:Oh wow!

[jbolden]

What do you mean by "proper browser"? Safari on iPad is rather good. There was more diversity in approach recently, for example Opera which used a server based approach for browsing but the diversity is collapsing. Supposedly Apple has been trying to get Microsoft to port a Trident browser over, but that's rumor mill. In think you need to be more nuanced.

As for Windows... right now Firefox is the only one out with even a beta of a plausible touch oriented browser for RT. Let's wait till Microsoft at least does the crime.

Clams have hands!

[nanospook]

Microsoft has tablets?

Fantastic news!

[norite]

Now I can finally sort out that wobbly dinner table :)

Surface Pro

[sheddd]

I'm kind've a MS hater, but for some reasons I'll omit I needed a Surface Pro... I assumed it would really suck. I don't really like Windows 8 or 8.1 yet. IMO it's a nice device, and the future for some windows users. Too expensive for many today, the hardware is nice; battery life sucks, but for most executive types who use MS Office, it's pretty awesome to be able to plug it into a usb3 hub and big monitor at your office/home, and bring the thing minus the externals with you wherever.

Yeah

[aliquis]

Why the fuck would they do anything?

Price on electronic product fell? OMG!

Yeah, so it was a bigger drop. Each and every Apple product have fixed price until the next one arrive. Guess it doesn't sell as many units as they want it to so they dropped the price.

Stuff that happens.

They don't need to lower the price for someone who have already bought the thing. Wtf is that?

I feel for Microsofties

[inglorion_on_the_net]

I feel for people who work for Microsoft these days. People I know who have worked there say it is a great company to work for (especially Microsoft Research), but it can't be good for morale that several of their recent major releases have met with so much backlash.

Will Surface Run Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious, will surface boot linux at all?

Re:Oh wow!

[cbhacking]

That restriction in RT was broken long ago, although it is (temporarily - it's already been broken in another RT device) back for 8.1.

The bigger problem is finding a browser that will compile for NT/ARM. There's a very small selection for CE/ARM, all of which are outdated, but that's not going to work. Even the open-source ones for NT/x86 are phenomenally non-portable, with admittedly decent reasons (things like the JIT compiler for Javascript and the assembly that Chrome uses to detour various Win32 APIs from the sandbox to its broker). There is already a WebKit-based (with interpreted JS) browser for RT, though.

Re:Oh wow!

[symbolset]

Surface RT doesn't allow other browsers. It's all IE, all the time, and it's integrated with Bing. This is like browsing the Internet with training wheels on rails that take you where they want you to go.

They need to do this for Surface Pro

[harlows_monkeys]

I wish they would do this for the Surface Pro. In a recent discussion over on /r/math on Reddit on taking digital notes, and there was a link to a math grad student's video review of Surface Pro with OneNote. It looked like it was an excellent tablet for doing serious mathematical note taking and writing.

Gabe at Penny Arcade reviewed it as a device for drawing, and was very pleased with it.

I would love a tablet that is good for those things, but not at $900.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"

Laugh at them.

Re:Awesome!

[gl4ss]

come with outlook? what does that even mean? they come with a webbrowser?

any 100 bucks android has outlook app..

Re:Oh wow!

[jbolden]

What browser that is functional for Surface RT (i.e. has full touch support...) has been banned? I haven't heard that Surface RT has a policy against other browsers.

As for Bing integration no question it is part of Windows 8, and is going to grow as part of Windows 8. There are some amazing Windows 8 specific features and the direction is going to be more platform specific stuff. That being said Google has a search app and it is allowed.

Windows RT naming is a problem for the Pro

[sjbe]

It's important to keep the RT (WinCE warmed over) and the Pro separate. They're distinct products. Although, I wonder whether the RT is dragging the Pro down with it.

I'm pretty sure it is. Microsoft has (correctly) realized that tablets and PCs are going to converge at some level and the Surface Pro is an attempt to get ahead of the curve on this. It's a genuinely good idea on their part though one can easily argue that the execution on the idea has been quite lacking. But among the biggest screw ups they've made is in how they named their tablet products. Microsoft introduced a lot of needless confusion around their products

The problem is that the first device they released runs Windows RT. When people hear "Windows" they are going to assume they are going to be able to run all their Windows applications. This is not the case with Windows RT - it is much more limited than that. They later released the Surface Pro which can run regular Windows 8 but the damage was already done. There was and I think remains considerable confusion between the two. Quite frankly they should have called Windows RT something completely different. Apple figured this out - iOS and OSX share some underpinnings but they are different enough that calling them the same thing would have been confusing and probably misleading. If the operating systems cannot run the same applications and they cannot even be ported over, then call them something different. Microsoft has a strong brand in Windows but they've somewhat diluted it and caused needless confusion.

Speaking from my own experience I had 3 people at my work who were thinking of getting a Surface running Windows RT until I pointed out that those machines would not run their Windows applications. They genuinely did not realize this.

Windows 8/RT does compete with iOS

[sjbe]

Do you seriously think they are putting a touch interface on Windows because they aren't competing with iOS and Android? If that was true then there would have been no reason to create Windows RT. The Surface is very much meant to directly compete with the iPad. It ALSO is an attempt to steal a march on Apple and converge the tablet and laptop. In case you hadn't noticed Microsoft has been trying very hard to leverage their Windows operating system into the tablet market.

Surface comes with a keyboard and stand designed into the form factor, the iPad is a purely hand-held touch operated device.

The fact that they included a keyboard by default does not mean they don't compete. It is a trivial exercise to put a keyboard on an iPad. There is no technological reason you cannot put a word processor or spreadsheet on an iPad.

The point is that it should really be compared to netbooks or Chromebooks, in which case it was still massively overpriced but an interesting twist on the idea.

You've almost got it. What Microsoft (correctly) realized is that laptops and tablets are going to converge. Windows 8 is an attempt to jump into the lead on this convergence. Apple is doing the exact same thing (OSX is getting a LOT of features from IOS) albeit in a different way and so is Google. Tablets and laptops are going to get less and less distinct over time. Right now there just are some pretty severe hardware limitations forcing the somewhat artificial distinction.

Windows RT may as well be linux

[sjbe]

WRONG It's actually windows 8 compiled for arm.

Basically true but also irrelevant. For all practical purposes it may as well be linux given how compatible Windows RT is with Windows 8. There is no way to recompile desktop Windows 8 apps to work on Windows RT. iOS and OSX also share some technology but Apple was at least bright enough to brand them differently since they are not directly compatible at present. Frankly I think Microsoft marketing really screwed up the branding on this one.

Re:Windows RT may as well be linux

[roc97007]

WRONG It's actually windows 8 compiled for arm.

Basically true but also irrelevant. For all practical purposes it may as well be linux given how compatible Windows RT is with Windows 8. There is no way to recompile desktop Windows 8 apps to work on Windows RT. iOS and OSX also share some technology but Apple was at least bright enough to brand them differently since they are not directly compatible at present. Frankly I think Microsoft marketing really screwed up the branding on this one.

What else could they do? Microsoft's only OS brand is Windows, and their only real selling point is "windows everywhere". Back end, desktop, laptop, tablet, phone. That some of those environments are incompatible with each other is an issue, but I don't see where Microsoft has any choice but to double down, even when it hurts them.

Re:Windows RT may as well be linux

[roc97007]

The other thing that occurs to me about this is that by branding an incompatible, single marketplace, one-off OS as Windows, and then coming out with it *before* the real product (Surface Pro) Microsoft has again damaged the Windows brand. It may somewhat resemble what you have on the desktop, but users quickly find that it won't run the same applications. Does the company think they're going to say "Oh, I didn't want the RT, I wanted the Pro" and re-buy? Or does the company believe that even a failed product in the ARM space is better than no product at all? Or are they trying to demonstrate the uselessness of platforms based on ARM?

Re:Oh wow!

[tepples]

What browser that is functional for Surface RT (i.e. has full touch support...) has been banned?

Does Windows RT allow making Firefox the default browser such that if an application starts an "open web page in a browser" intent, it'll open in Firefox instead of the built-in IE? I know iOS doesn't allow making Opera Mini or the various WebKit wrappers the default browser.

Re:Oh wow!

[tepples]

That restriction in RT was broken long ago, although it is (temporarily - it's already been broken in another RT device) back for 8.1.

If a web browser relies on a jailbreak that Microsoft could close at any time, I don't think the sort of users who would prefer a Surface RT or iPad over a laptop would be very happy with having to deal with this sort of cat-and-mouse game.

Re:Oh wow!

[jbolden]

I know iOS doesn't allow making Opera Mini or the various WebKit wrappers the default browser.

We've talked about this. Having Apple as your enterprise provider doesn't allow that. iOS allows it just fine. Developers (developer SDK) / system admins (Enterprise or University SDK) are allowed to change default behaviors.

Does Windows RT allow making Firefox the default browser such that if an application starts an "open web page in a browser" intent, it'll open in Firefox instead of the built-in IE?

No idea. But Firefox doesn't fully support RT yet. So it is a bit early to accuse Microsoft of not allowing this. My point is let's at least wait until Firefox has a meaningful RT browser and get's turned down before accusing Microsoft of not supporting it.

Re:Oh wow!

[tepples]

Having Apple as your enterprise provider doesn't allow that.

Which TV ads mention having other-than-Apple (in the case of the iPad) or other-than-Microsoft (in the case of the Surface) as your enterprise provider? How is having other-than-Apple or other-than-Microsoft as an individual's enterprise provider an economical alternative to what competitors are offering?

Developers (developer SDK) / system admins (Enterprise or University SDK) are allowed to change default behaviors.

I was under the impression that it would change right back if a developer didn't pay to renew his membership.

Still don't want to buy it

[sproketboy]

ntr

Surface

[brunnegd]

Sounds like MS did not show enough of the "feel good" commercials, with young adults clicking and jumping about. Ha, maybe a few commercials on how well the machine worked as a computer would have been more advised. As is typical with MS, they are selling style over substance. And to boot, they give us Win8.

The Nook is a better deal...

[erp_consultant]

B&N is selling the Nook for $129/$149 right now and, frankly, it's a better tablet than the Surface in just about every way. Maybe if Microsoft included the cover/keyboard it might be a bit more appealing but those are sold separately.

I wanted Microsoft to succeed with this thing, I really did, but as soon as it came out I just knew that it was DOA. The original price was way too high. The specs were sort of average. Not enough Apps. Failure to attract developers. The list goes on.

It will be interesting to see what (if anything) Microsoft does for those unfortunate souls that plunked down $500 for one of these things not very long ago. It kind of reminds me of the original iPhone that sold for $600, only to be reduced to $400 shortly thereafter. Customers were justifiably pissed off. Maybe MS should give them a free tablet keyboard or a coupon for some software? It's the least they could do. Correction...the least they could do is nothing, which is probably what will happen.

Re:Oh wow!

[jbolden]

What do TV ads have to do with, "iOS doesn't allow making Opera Mini or the various WebKit wrappers the default browser"? That statement simply isn't true. iOS allows it. Apple allows it. The consumer version in the default configuration doesn't allow it.

How is having other-than-Apple or other-than-Microsoft as an individual's enterprise provider an economical alternative to what competitors are offering?

Individuals who want to modify system behaviors who are not Apple developers shouldn't be buying Apple products. No one is claiming that Android doesn't allow more freedom.