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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."
In other words, Microsoft spent more money on advertising the Surface than they took in selling it.
I remember a time when Microsoft had a larger vision for surface.
God spoke to me
The walled garden has yet to reach the Apple desktop, which is still a POSIX compliant UNIX environment complete with X-Window (as an optional install) and BASH that can run off the shelf commercial software. It is in fact the last such platform on the market.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Is the fundamental issue that people are sick of using shitty computers with shitty locked down versions of windows all day at work, so they don't want more of the same bullshit for their personal devices?
No, the problem is an inexplicable tablet interface on the new desktop OS and a tablet which seemed to be sold on the idea that it does absolutely everything that the laptop which you already have does in exactly the same way, not to mention it running that bizarre new interface people keep muttering about because it's apparently terrible.
Yes and No.
Joe Sixpack** doesn't give a damn about the lock-in per se (see also the iPad). They want something that has flexibility, durability and (apparent) speed packed into an easy-for-them-to-grok mobile interface. A pretty UI/graphics package is also a must. Note that the iPad does all of that - it doesn't come with an instruction manual, yet most non-techie folks can pick it up for the first time and do what they consider to be useful stuff with it in less than five minutes.
Surface RT OTOH? Pure fail in this department.
** sample size = one spouse, all my relatives, and a handful of non-tech friends. Your own mileage may vary.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
All those ads with people dancing around snapping covers on and off - opening and closing weren't enough to evangelize the masses as to the virtues of the technology?!?
As much as I hate Microsoft - it's sad to say - that the [very, very] few people who I know who actually had a Surface had nothing but RAVE reviews about them. The summary was: "Size/weight of an iPad - but with a real keyboard. I could take it to meetings, and actually run Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. I could actually take notes with the keyboard - and not some "add-on" iPad type keyboard which made the iPad as big and bulky as a small laptop or netbook".
So in short - it was a real "productivity" device - not like tablet, which I still don't think is really good for anything but *light* web browsing and watching movies on a screen, the size of what we used to watch them on in the 70's.
Remember when the early XBOX sales looks so bad they thought it might drag Microsoft under?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I took one look at the intro video and was blown away, I thought that Surface was as cool as dammit. But then I assumed that it would be priced at Microsoft prices. Instead they tried to sell it at Apple prices. Had they, from the get go, offered iPad coolness at a Windows price, I think they might have made a go of it.
Well their vision is "the same interface on all devices". The problem is, we as consumers dont want that. A phone interface does not work well on a desktop. That, and it's ugly.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
The Surface is a wonderful device that I love to use. My seventeen kids all fight over the privilege to use it and they all want to replace their iPads with a Surface. They're just flying off the shelves, and the local stores can't keep them in stock. I have to drive 200 miles to buy more. At work our productivity increased 1,022% when we replaced all of our ipad and android tablets with the Surface. It's so cute and convenient, I just can't keep my hands off of it.
There, did it for you. Cut and paste as necessary.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The fundamental issue is that people already have a choice of multiple shitty locked down tablets, for which they can get far more applications for just about the same price or less.
What reason does anybody have to buy a SurfaceRT?
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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.
Microsoft's view was that the iPad and similar Android tablets were fine for media consumption but were really lacking when it came to creating. Having a physical keyboard without adding significant weight or bulk was a killer feature in their mind.
A lot of people felt that Microsoft did an excellent job in designing the keyboard. A key point they missed though is that once you stick a keyboard on a tablet like that there's not much distinction between it and a small laptop. So why not just get a laptop?
One of the nice things about a tablet is that you don't need an flat surface available in order to use it. Microsoft's own Surface commercials show a bunch of people sitting around a table. A tablet that requires a desk in order to take advantage of one its key features isn't going to set the world on fire.
In Microsoft's vision of the world, an electric drill would need a gas pedal, a gear selector, a brake, an ignition key, and a steering wheel because consistent interfaces are important (who cares if you can actually use it?).
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.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
At least with laptops, I can stick Linux on them when their version of windows gets too bogged down with viruses.
Windows 8 may have the same interface on all devices the problem windows RT is simpler
Windows RT is windows that can not run Windows Programs.
It was doomed to fail for that reason. Apple might be swapping parts of the UI back and forth across devices for consistency. But apple never said IOS was OS XI
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.