Early Surface Sales Pitiful

Nerval's Lobster writes "Microsoft has earned $853 million from sales of its Surface tablets, according to the company's annual Form 10-K filed with the SEC. That's a bit of a disaster, to put it bluntly. Earlier estimates put Surface sales at roughly 1.5 million units; the $853 million figure reinforces that projection. By comparison, Apple sold 14.6 million iPads in its last quarter alone. Adding insult to injury, Microsoft spent quite a bit producing and marketing Surface. The Windows division's 'cost of revenue increased $1.8 billion, reflecting a $1.6 billion increase in product costs associated with Surface and Windows 8, including a charge for Surface RT inventory adjustments of approximately $900 million,' read the Form 10-K. 'Sales and marketing expenses increased $1.0 billion or 34 percent, reflecting an $898 million increase in advertising costs associated primarily with Windows 8 and Surface.' Overall, Microsoft's Windows division earned $19.2 billion in its fiscal 2013."

Comments

No the Surface simply has crap sales.

[tuppe666]

Remember when the early XBOX sales looks so bad they thought it might drag Microsoft under?

Except the early Xbox sales where great. From a 2001 article http://uk.gamespot.com/news/microsoft-reports-strong-xbox-sales-2829778 "Xbox sold out as soon as we launched, and we're selling systems as fast as we can produce them. More than 100,000 units a week are being delivered to retailers, so game players are likely to find Xbox systems throughout the holiday season. With one of the best launch lineups ever, I understand why Xbox is the most sought-after gift for the holiday." "

Not sure why people are trying to rewrite history.

Re:sick of windows at work

[Penguinisto]

You need to update your propaganda. Apple no longer has the lead in tablet market share.

Has nothing to do with propaganda, or even who has the lead. However, it has everything to do with why the Surface RT failed utterly. The UI is confusing and ugly, and the flexibility (read: app support) is simply not there. Battery life is a big question mark, and half the internal storage ("disk") space on the low-end model is eaten by stuff that the consumer sees no use for (the recovery partition, the bloated-as-hell OS, etc.)

Replace "iPad" with "Android" if it makes your phallus turgid - machts nichts, my point still stands. Th3e RT sucks because it fails to meet the requirements I outlined up there.

If you can prove me wrong, please do so.