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Why Is Microsoft Setting More Money On Fire With Surface 2?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Never mind that sales of the original Surface totaled a pitiful $853 million in its first few months of release, or that the tablet failed to make Microsoft an up-and-coming player (or any kind of player, really) in the mobile-device wars: Microsoft's now rolling out Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, which feature upgraded specs and accessories but no radical adjustments to the first generation. Why would Microsoft pour good money after bad? The answer could be outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who late last year released a memo suggesting that Microsoft was evolving into a 'devices and services' company. 'There will be times when we build specific devices for specific purposes, as we have chosen to do with Xbox and the recently announced Microsoft Surface,' he wrote. 'In all our work with partners and on our own devices, we will focus relentlessly on delivering delightful, seamless experiences across hardware, software and services.' That meant Surface (then on the cusp of release) was clearly a harbinger of the company's future direction — and canceling the project after the first generation would have been a stinging refutation of Ballmer's strategy. By spending the money and resources on a second device generation, Microsoft manages to save a little bit of face, albeit at considerable cost. But imagine the hilarity that'll ensue if this second generation goes down in a huge ball of flames like the first."
The XBOX 1 lost 4 billion dollars. It's now a solid market that Microsoft dominates. Why would they not use that same strategy here?
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
What other choice does Microsoft have? It can't get back in the game if it gives up trying.
Yes. It's called "Escalation of Commitment", and it happens in larger firms, too, and Government. Also with individuals. A good counter-example is HP ditching WebOS and now selling Android tablets.
The articles I'm seeing so far seem to boil down to "yeah, it's an improvement, but I still don't want one".
Microsoft is so focused on Office and Outlook that they seem to forget that the huge consumer market for tablets isn't being driven by these features. When everything you do is geared to a corporate environment, people not using it in a corporate environment don't look at your product.
It just often seems like Microsoft is doing it's usual "this is what the market wants", and not actually looking at what people do want.
And, quite frankly, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slides, and connecting to a corporate Exchange server with Outlook .. that's not what the vast majority of people buying tablets use them for. It's like they're stuck in that "I'm a PC" mindset from those Apple commercials where the Mac is talking about having fun, and the PC is talking about making charts and saying those are fun.
Tablets are (from what I can see) used as infotainment devices with the ability to send some emails and surf the web. But somehow Microsoft, as ever, is looking at the business use case -- and I am pretty sure that the business use case is a much smaller chunk of the market.
So in terms of what is going to make people choose the Microsoft tablet over an Android tablet, it seems like a much smaller group is going to be looking for that.
Whether this is a product Microsoft keeps losing money on until they get any meaningful market share (like they did with the XBox), or the product starts gaining traction ... I have no idea. But looking at what I use my tablet for, Microsoft seems to be missing the point.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I know how great it is to bash Microsoft in absolutely every thread their name appears..
The unfortunate state of /. is 90% of stories are click baiting fanboy fodder. It makes it a joyous occasion when an occasional technical article slips through.
However, the Surface Pro 2 looks very attractive. I am buying one.
I'm not buying one... yet. What most partisans fail to see is Microsoft has no choice. Tablets are the future for the majority of consumers. Microsoft can't compete using someone else's OS. Microsoft can't rely on hardware "partners" to follow through. Their only long term chance is to keep plugging away at the Surface Pro until hardware power, battery life and application availability hits a tipping point. They may still fail, but quitting now is certain failure.
in most marriages, that's called children.
Though I'm used to the default MS bashing here -- I have to wonder have many people have actually USED a Surface (esp the Pro) for more than 5 min in a MS store or at a friend's house?
I have two sitting here in front of me. I had to build the win8 image to push out via SCCM for our enterprise. The Surface pro is fucking terrible. What's the point of it when you spend 99% of your time on the windows desktop instead of Metro?
The entire device lacks focus. It doesn't solve a particular problem (although the multiuser aspect is nice on our domain).
If the Surface disappeared today no one would care. I was actually hopeful as I'd like to see some competition in the market. The Surface however isn't it.
One could easily have said the same thing about Microsoft Word. It was a copycat and it sucked compared to Word Perfect when it first came out.
WordPerfect lost because it botched the transition from character-mode to WSYIWYG GUI. And it botched this because of crappy and shortsighted management that thought Windows was a fad.
If anything, Microsoft's modern strategy with Surface is analogous to WP's errors: they came late to the party with a subpar entry, and expected to win because they won the last market.