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3 Reasons Why Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets
CowboyRobot writes "It's looking like Microsoft is planning to replace its underachieving Surface tablet with two new products, but it may need three to finally have success with the Surface. Three tablets would provide an entry point and an upgrade path. Multiple Surface RT models would help Windows RT survive OEM skepticism. Microsoft needs device fanfare to accompany Windows 8.1, and to coincide with enterprise hardware upgrades. If the company releases one of the models before the end of the year, the device would arrive in time not only for the holiday season, but also to cash in on user interest in Windows 8.1, which will be released later this fall. Surface devices released next year, meanwhile, could capitalize on enterprise hardware upgrades, which are expected to pick up as Windows XP's April 8, 2014 end-of-service date nears."
but also to cash in on user interest in Windows 8.1
What user interest?
It takes BALLS the size of CANADA to TRIPLE-DOWN!
Lady and gentlemen, Microsoft is about to show you how it's done. This is like RIM, without the spending cap or reality check.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It may have been able to compete with the original iPad, but not the latest and that's the greatest miscalculation.
Here's a funny (ironic funny, not so much ha-ha funny) thought: Microsoft made their way in the early days of Microcomputers riding on the backs of cheap clones or clones which could outperform IBM's PCs.
Fast-forward to the present and their trying to ride the backs of the highest performing hardware, with low performing clones, hoping to drag along the operating system into prominence with it.
They should stay out of the hardware business and work on the operating system for tablets, let anyone make them and encourage development of premium hardware.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Microsoft is not Apple. People don't wait in line for Microsoft products just because they are Microsoft products. Apple built a cult following around top notch products. They repeatedly made good products. That didn't happen overnight, and it damn near killed apple. Microsoft has to stop producing garbage. Until *All* of Microsoft products are top tier for an extended period of time, no one will trust Microsoft enough to buy into the lock-in. Microsoft has had too many Zunes, and too many Bobs for people to shell out top dollar expecting a good user experience. Now they do the wait and see, and a wait and see product is never good enough to get the top of the market, no matter how good it is because those same customers bought the competitions product already.
Microsoft only has one hope of remaining relevant. They have to make awesome products repeatedly for a period of years to decades, and accept that their products will go unnoticed for a long time. Eventually, a core of loyal Microsoft customers will form, and if the top notch products continue to flow, the core will continue to grow. One piece of junk like windows 8 makes it onto the shelves, and Microsoft is back at square one again. This will be a long and expensive process for Microsoft, but the longer they wait, the more likely the process will kill them.
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Make sure the bootloader is available to be unlocked and the devices are compatible with Android.
People will buy them knowing that if they hate the Windows mobile experience, they can always load Android and be reasonably happy with the device.
I think someone is trying to get Microsoft to go out of business by tricking them into doubling down on the Surface RT.
Microsoft for years has had "OS basic, OS Home, OS Home Premium, OS Business, OS Business Premium, OS Business Pro ...."
Give me one offering which does everything I need. Don't try to sell me one of 9 slightly different versions which are all variously crippled and limited.
This cash grab to sell a bunch of different version of the same thing is usually annoying, and periodically you disover that "Home Premium" is still missing some pretty basic features.
What Microsoft needs to do is understand what people want and why, not just come out with the latest "this is what we're giving you" and then scratch their heads when nobody gives a shit.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
From TFA:
This assumes that Microsoft is willing to give away Windows to hit the price point. This in turn means buying in on the "sell cheap razors, make money selling razor blades" idea, which Microsoft did actually try with the XBox, but would represent a change in strategy with respect to mobile.
Can Microsoft make that decision quickly? I can imagine endless bickering among the multiple layers of middle management about whether that's a good idea or not.
Also, Windows needs a more powerful device to run compared to Android, which drives up device costs.
This is just fantasy. The OEMs are not happy about any aspect of the Surface situation (Microsoft making its own hardware in direct competition with the OEMs, lousy sales, etc.) and this sort of abstract reassurance is worthless.
Again, just fantasy. Microsoft has completely failed to gin up any excitement around the current crop of Surface products and it's silly to just assume they can do better with a new product.
Also, TFA suggests that "excitement over Windows 8.1" would help sell Surface tablets, and I don't think there will be enough excitement there to help anything.
Wow. Just, wow. Traveling executives who likely already have a Macbook Air and an iPad are going to get rid of them in favor of a Surface Pro and a baby Surface RT?
Oh wait, I forgot, the new tablets will have Outlook so it's totally plausible! Yeah, no.
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Why Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets
Ooh, I know this one: Because that's how many they sold.
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There's a juicy irony in calling Windows a new, untested OS. Microsoft have been plugging Windows for touch screens for decades now; they just suck at it.
I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, by the way, just enjoying the phrasing.
Ballmer doesn't understand that the Windows brand represents one of two things:
1.) That super locked down computer at work which forces me to use Excel and blocks Facebook and Youtube.
2.) That super virus infested computer in the living room that the kids use to type up their reports.
Neither of these are the kinds of experiences people want associated with their tablet experience; it's among the reasons why so many people have opted for them for casual use. If Microsoft is trying to make inroads into a market other than the desktop, then they need to use branding to their advantage by distancing itself from the desktop experience. As much as Ballmer believes that people want Windows everywhere, the spec sheet of Windows RT, almost by definition, ensures that its ONLY resemblance to the familiar desktop experience (even if we assume the positive aspects thereof) is the Windows name. No use of their iTunes library, and tricky-at-best use of Gmail and Dropbox.
If Microsoft wants to compete in the tablet space, then it's not a matter of their lack of an entry-level device like the Nexus 7 - it's the lack of an entry POINT. Apple's entry point was the iPod, whose entry point was the fact that it played MP3s from both Napster and MusicMatch. Apple then established iTunes, which was the entry point for the iPhone, and then the iPad built upon that. Microsoft requires an Outlook.com account, Skydrive, Zune Music (or Xbox Music?), and rebuying the apps you already bought on your iPhone or Galaxy S2. Even if they gave away the entry level Surface, that's still far too much change for far too many people.
Microsoft, here's my business plan for your next tablet...
1.) Do what they say - make a 7", $199 entry level unit and a $499 extended unit. Call it the xTab, and the Pocket xTab. Have no Microsoft branding on it at all, and never once use the term "Windows".
2.) Sell it (at the very least the Pocket xTab) wherever you can - Best Buy, Microcenter, Amazon, even Walgreens or Rite Aid. Make it as easy as possible to acquire one.
3.) Do some sort of cross licensing deal - Office for Android in exchange for official Gmail for the xTab. Offer some free Azure space to Dropbox in exchange for an official client. Do the same for Facebook in exchange for an Instagram client.
4.) Offer crossgrade app reimbursement - if a paid app from your iTunes account or Google Play account exists in the Microsoft Store, give it to the customer for free...then pay the developer what they would have gotten as a result of the sale. This will encourage developers on other platforms to develop the same app for the Windows Store. Similarly, provide copies of movies, TV episodes, and eBooks to people making the jump.
5.) Get the Chevron team back in the game - your system hackers are your platform evangelists, and you need all the help you can get.
6.) 16GB versions include 16GB of space available to the user.
7.) Add the Start Menu back to Windows 8 as an option. It won't do squat on the tablet OS, but it will help get some good will from the people who are avoiding Windows 8 because it comes across as trying to force a tablet UI where it doesn't belong.
8.) Free phone upgrades (to an xPhone, btw) to anyone still stuck on Windows Phone 7. Again, it's expensive, but Apple gets good will from giving older handsets software updates. Want to one-up them? You'll need a stack of Lumias to do it.
Think it's too drastic or too expensive? I can't possibly see it costing more than the hit that Steve Ballmer's way of doing things cost the company.
Microsoft was never known for tablets, they were known for desktop and server systems. I would agree with the market strategy if they were early adopters, but they were pretty late to the game. This puts them in the same spot as they were with Zune.
I'm not saying that it's impossible, but being late (years behind) the competition means that they should sit with 1 tablet and make it so awesome that iPad users claim it's competition. Trying to dump out 3 Surface devices without any demand is another failure in the pipes.
Let me ask another question to point out why 3 tablets really really bad. What do consumers want in an iPad or Kindle? Stability and Reliability are what matters the most to the consumers. With some, there is also the status of owning an "i" device, but not most. With an unproven device, MS should be treating this like Amazon and Kindle. Simple at first to gain consumer trust and market share, later expand to various features.
What MS is trying to do it appears is show that PCs are no longer their focus. This from a company where PCs are supposed to be their bread and butter. If they treated a tablet as a compliment instead of a replacement it would make much more sense. I would agree that many consumers will replace, but a huge number will remain on PCs for increased performance and options. Tablets can replace laptops much easier than desktops.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The reason why the Surface failed wasn't because its software sucked...
It was a marketing failure to differentiate the product, releasing the inferior product that couldn't do what people expected it to under the guise of "but it runs windows".
It was a marketing failure to refer to the product as being "better" than an iPad or Android tablet because it had twice the memory, when it had *equal* usable memory, and there's not a damn thing that you can do to recover the unusable memory.
It was a marketing failure to create a dance video for a product with zero brand recognition rather than actually saying *something* about it.
It was a packaging failure as Marketing talked up the awesome keyboards and why it makes the product far better than the competition, but you didn't actually get one without increasing the cost $130 or more than everything else on the market.
It was a design failure in the sense that the product that *could* do what you wanted was twice as thick and heavy as the nearest competitor.
The software was actually pretty well designed for the hardware, it's just that the software tried to be forced on the rest of the market as well, in places where it didn't make sense. That in turn hurt the Windows brand.
If their first offering wasn't called a Surface (a meaningless name) but instead the Xbox Tablet, the response would have likely been quite different as it looks and behaves like an Xbox and doesn't have the same connotation as "it runs Windows, so all my programs will work, and I won't have to learn anything new". That in turn further hurt the Windows brand.
The Surface brand become synonymous with the Zune, Vista, and a number of other Microsoft failures despite being a reasonable product, but not the product that you expected it to be.
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The Surface Pro with type keyboard was by far the best ultra-light device in its size. When it was released, with its 1920x1080 display, pen input, touch screen, etc. it blew past the now outdated 11" MacBook air and anything else in that size.
My only complaints was the glued down components and soldered RAM:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+Teardown/12842/1
I hope that the next Surface Pro 2 has Haswell, and eliminates the component glue and soldered RAM, or at least offers a 6-8GB RAM option and 256-480HG mSATA drive option. Then it would be prefect for me. Hopefully with a newer Haswell chip, the fans can also be reduced or eliminated, and the battery life will increase.
I am also eyeing the Haswell based Samsung ATIV Q, but at 13" it is a bit too large for me.
I also love the thin but solid unibody construction of the Acer Aspire s7-191, but without a pen input (which is really needed for my graphic and CAD work), it does not meet my needs. Not to mention, that it appears that Acer is abandoning the 11" model, which did not yet get the Haswell refresh.
On the Apple side, it is sad that Apple refuses to make a retina MacBook Air, even though the iPad3/4 has a 2048x1536 display compared to 1440x900 on 13" Air & 1366x768 on 11" Air, and also support pen input. Even though I much prefer Unix based OSX, for the first time in 8 years, I am planning to buy a Windows based laptop/tablet this year, instead of a Mac.
I wonder if there is any Linux distribution in the works which might take full advantage of these new touch based ultralights/tablets?
Hopefully manufactories will start to reduce the size of the large bezels around the display. With small devices, the smaller the bezel, the better the display.
There's a juicy irony in calling Windows a new, untested OS. Microsoft have been plugging Windows for touch screens for decades now; they just suck at it.
I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, by the way, just enjoying the phrasing.
I have one of the old XP tablets and to say it sucks is to put it mildly. It worked pretty good for some things, generally not using the touch screen any more than necessary, but that's counter to what they are pushing these days, whether you like it or not. People are trained on Windows with a Keyboard and Mouse. Windows without either is a strange and unfamiliar thing which creates a lot of mental conflict, trying to figure how to do what we are familiar with with unfamiliar controls. Android and iOS have effectively come out the door without the baggage of prior expectations.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Problem is - Android already has that market.
Apple is what it always has been - a completely closed platform with hardware and software from the same source. No problem there for those that want that.
The alternative is to buy your tablet from one of many different companies that make them. That's the same as it always was, but now Google provides that OS rather than Microsoft.
Why would a company or a consumer go with Microsoft when Android already works well and is established in the market?
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
..Why Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: ...to cash in on user interest in Windows 8.1, which will be released later this fall.
Yeah you're right. 3 Tablets should about do it. There probably won't be as many as 4 people with "user interest" in Windows 8.1.
They should stay out of the hardware business and work on the operating system for tablets, let anyone make them and encourage development of premium hardware.
That's what surface is. Surface isn't really a serious consumer product strategy. It's Microsoft making clear to the hardware makers that if they refuse to produce anything innovative or worth buying MS will do it for them.
The problem with this strategy is that MS doesn't really seem to have anything innovative to push, in large part because windows 8 is terrible (so is 8.1).
For the better part of a decade MS has been making software work for an iPad like slate device (they even had a term for it: a slate, a tablet is a convertible laptop with a rotating screen). And how many of those did we see on the market? None. MS has been burned badly by their 3rd party partners not rising to the challenge of making devices that aren't shit. If anything the market has gone the other way, to shovelling cheaper and cheaper stuff out that is in many cases junk.
Try and buy a haswell tablet right now. How many can you find? There are a couple, but they are in very few product segments. MS recognizes this problem, and sees surface as the way to address this, but isn't able to implement. Which is sort of ok, if 2 months from now they launch and awesome surface pro 2, and that forces the other vendors to do the same. Late to the market, but forcing some progress maybe. And that's what Surface is there for, it's not to really making microsoft billions directly, it's to make sure that the hardware partners make things worth buying and force them to keep pushing new technology, or they're going to look bad compared to Surface. I'm sure MS would be thrilled if Surface was the most expensive and one of the worst windows 8 devices you could buy - because that would mean windows 8 would be moving at a good pace somewhere.
I think the confusion between the Surface Pro and RT may go down as one of the biggest branding mistakes of the 21st century.
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