Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Surface Revenue Drops By $285M (26%) (computerworld.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Computerworld:
Revenue generated by Microsoft's Surface hardware during the March quarter was down 26% from the same period the year before, the company said yesterday as it briefed Wall Street. For the quarter, Surface produced $831 million, some $285 million less than the March quarter of 2016, for the largest year-over-year dollar decline ever... The revenue decline "indicates that the aging product needs a refresh badly," Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates, wrote in a note to clients today. "Price cutting and competing vendors' products will continue to create declines until new product is released, rumored for later this year." Microsoft threw cold water on any significant changes to the Surface line before June, forecasting that the current quarter will also post a revenue decline.
Computers with Windows 7 are still in high demand, release the Surface Book Windows 7 Edition and watch profits go up.
Someone is making a mountain out of a mole hill.
- The Surface Line is more about making windows trendy and sexy in an era of iPads and multifunction laptops.....The surface line has pushed other manufacturers that sell windows machines to innovate and deploy more modern products (even Asus has been experimenting with combining tablet display technology and form factor with windows, Dell has been investing more in their small tablet line).
- Since the whole point of the surface line is to cater to Microsoft's affluent customers and push the state of windows mobile computers, it is more important that Microsoft deliver new products well and perfectly than to delivery frequently. The last several refreshes of the line have gone well....the Surface Studio, Pro 4, and book have all done their job....if there is any complaints, it is that Microsoft pushed releasing the hardware before all the bugs were worked out or before newer hardware could be slimmed down enough in size. And, the book has already gotten a modest boost with the recent performance base release.
So what if sales for the current quarter are trending down as a result of Microsoft taking longer to release a Surface pro 5 or book 2? Isn't waiting until they can deliver properly what we want them to do?
Its the classical "why upgrade if this one works fine"?
Microsoft did come out with a fine product this time (I run Linux on mine though).
Microsoft has to pull an Apple (make either attractive gimmicks or real hardware improvements) to get people to upgrade.
I just wish Windows wasn't a System-As-A-Service Cloud-Shit OS, I'd be happy to pay extra $100 ( or even $400) and get Windows no strings attached.
Fuck the Cloud business models.
linux is so good it did not even catch your "ans" typo
It doesn't mean there's a loss of interest. It just means that everybody who really wanted one already has one.
Now all they have to do is release updates every year or so for those users to give them an upgrade path.
#DeleteFacebook
Who care, MS Stock is UP and they beat their first quarter earnings estimate. MS is making money on Office, Azure, Windows, and annual support agreements. The surface was an experiment that some people love but more people hate. I am in the hater camp for both the MS Surface and the new Mac Book Pro. Someone make some decent hardware, please.... pretty please. For full disclosure, the last device was a Lenovo Yoga. The Yoga is 80% to getting to a MacBook Pro. Screen is too shiny, the right shift key is in the wrong spot, and the touchpad has the stupid line for left click on one side and right click on the other. Using a Yoga as a Tablet with Windows 10 is a lackluster user experience, just give me the iPad.
"Microsoft's Surface Revenue Drops By $285M (26%)"
Of course, because it's a craptastic piece of shite that costs too much and barely makes a good cutting board. Nobody I've ever known has owned one and I've never seen one used in a business setting in the wild. Not once, even during all the different contracts I spent pretending to work for Microsoft.
Oh, I'm sure they're out there, just like are probably people still clinging to their Zunes, "squirting" songs at each other and clapping like goobers when the transfer actually succeeds.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Q1 2017 Mac Sales: $7.244 BEELION.
Surface Sales: $831 MEELION.
Yep, peeps be lovin' them some Surface kit, LOL!
Microsoft just needs to sell us a 3:2 small bezel normal-hinged laptop like they teased 3 years ago: https://twitter.com/sephr/stat...
It doesn't mean there's a loss of interest. It just means that everybody who really wanted one already has one.
Now all they have to do is release updates every year or so for those users to give them an upgrade path.
And, apparently, something they might also have to do is to have Apple go out of business, since Macs outsold Surface devices EIGHT TO ONE in the same time period:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
Imagine if Apple actually cared to update their Macs more often, they would outsell Surface even more!
#MacMini2014WasAnInsult
#MacMiniNotUpdatedForFiveYears
#DeleteFacebook
Those nice cheap plastic big thick and heavy case with fans in a sea of plastic and +20 programs of malware with mechanical drives that took 4 minutes to boot and had grainy dark terrible screens were what Pcs were in 2011. SHIT.
The surface booted in seconds, thin, ultra portable, great IPS, amazing battery, no shitware.
Outside of Slashdot yes they did make billions for Microsoft and were popular in the x86 line. No really I own one as I used to mock them after being on Slashdot.org assumed they were behind horrible because other people who never used them said so etc. I own one now.
Today we have the Dell XPS ultrabook line, Yoga from Lenovo, and others and a few with great screens and SSDs/NVME so times are changing. Microsoft's goal was to make some money which they still are, but not to let Apple and Android carve out the whole PC market as they focus on COST COST COST savings from the Great Recession which temporarily helped sales but long term was hurting the brand. It served it's purpose.
Also MS is selling its Surface Book which is eating at it's own sales as well.
http://saveie6.com/
Microsoft mobile. New synonym of 'moron': Microsoft.
Imagine if Apple actually cared to update their Macs more often, they would outsell Surface even more!
#MacMini2014WasAnInsult
#MacMiniNotUpdatedForFiveYears
Nice that you disingenuously ignored that the MacBook Pro got updated about a year after the last model, and the iMac only about 6 months more than that.
The performance is fantastic. Granted, we have i7 and 16 gigs of ram. But, all MS Office apps work instantly.
Ok, one comment, what was it Slashdot was all afire about with new MacBook Pros last year, hmm...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The "updated" MacBook Pro is hated in the MacRumors forums by most pro users (useless touch bar, lack of ports, thinness over function).
The iMac is hated by everyone who doesn't want a built-in display in their desktop computers so it's not a valid option. So our only options left are either an underpowered and downgraded Mac mini (which is itself now three years old - or five years old if you count from the 2012 Mac mini which was the last real update) or a not-really-upgradable, not-really-Pro-featured but pro-expensive trashcan Mac Pro which Apple themselves apologized about.
So no, I'm not "ignoring" anything.
#DeleteFacebook
Where I work, it turns out the Surface Pro 4 got chosen as the de-facto standard issue PC for all new hires, moving forward, unless they request a Mac instead. (We're a shop with about a 50/50 Mac and Windows PC mix. Lots of creative types work for us and often feel more comfortable or confident working on a Mac, so we give them that option. Other groups like Finance require Windows for the accounting software we run.)
Our whole I.T. group was issued Surface Pro 4 setups to use first, so we could get a real, hands-on evaluation of them for a while before recommending them to anyone else in the company. My experience is, as long as you don't totally cheap out and buy the lowest-end configurations -- you completely forget you're not on a modern, mid-range performance desktop PC when it's docked with a standard monitor, keyboard and mouse.
When I have to use mine on the go? I dislike the compromises it makes. The pencil stylus works pretty well but it's not that useful for most of what I do. For I.T., I need to remote into serves and make changes or update inventory spreadsheets or respond to emails and help tickets in the web-based system. None of that is made any better with the pencil. So that means using the keyboard cover with it, and that thing stinks. Even if it had better keys and feel, it's also just not pleasant how you have to flip back the plastic kickstand and use the flimsy cover on a flat surface to emulate a traditional hinged notebook. Doesn't work well if you're really trying to use it in your laptop instead of on a table. And the whole unit, with its plastic casing, just feels junky compared to the aluminum used with something like Apple's iPad. Not enough USB ports on a Surface Pro 4 either.
But the thing is? A lot of our employees WILL find the pencil really useful. They use Adobe apps and other drawing packages regularly. And others are more concerned about carrying around the thinnest, lightest-weight machine possible, so they like it too. Even the SP4's power adapter is really small and light compared to the bricks they want you to carry with you with many other machines.
And lastly? Just because MS makes it, they can do the type of integration that has always given Apple the edge over everyone else until now. They can push out firmware updates or driver updates as part of the normal Windows Update process, ensuring it stays current without users having to seek the updates out on a support web page or use clunky 3rd. party updater utilities that are known to screw up.
A refresh isn't going to fix what's wrong with the Surface.
Sure it is. If mine breaks right now I'm not going to go and buy another given that the next one is anticipated to be released in a few months. Are you telling me you'd be okay paying silly amounts of money (the Surface Pro line hasn't gone through a discount in a long time) for 3 year old hardware which is beaten in performance by all the competition and then call the concept broken? That's absurd.
It may surprise you to know that sales for everything tend to drop right before the next version is released. Either that or everything you know is a broken concept.
It just means that everybody who really wanted one already has one
I know several people who showed interest in them and I've advised them to hold off or wait until holiday discounts (of which there have been none this year). The Surface Pro 4 is effectively 3 year old hardware at brand new prices and a new model is due to be released shortly. You'd be mad to buy one now.
A lot of the industry is expecting an announcement of a new model in 3 days at MicrosoftEDU.
And yet they are making billions off it. So maybe no one gives a shit about Apple sales of a completely different product with a completely different target market.
The used Surface market is pretty strong. Compulsive upgraders sell off their old models at a low price, which gives more cost-conscious consumers a choice between a new, expensive one, or a used cheap one. But Microsoft only makes money off the new sales, not the secondhand market. The net effect is that Surface revenue is depressed. The same happens with any new product line - you get a sales spike at launch, when the current model is the only game in town, and then it falls to sustainable levels as new models have to compete with the old one on the used market.
As for myself, I'm quite happy with my secondhand Surface Pro 2. Cost me about a third of what a new Surface Pro 4 would, and it does everything I've tried to use it for.
and transforming into a company like Apple. They've more or less failed at that. 23% is a huge number in the corporate world. Somebody in Microsoft is freaking out over that I'm sure. Another quarter or two like that and their senior management will kill the line. Microsoft doesn't spend billions on branding, which come to think of it is probably why they can't hang with Apple.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The "updated" MacBook Pro is hated in the MacRumors forums by most pro users (useless touch bar, lack of ports, thinness over function).
The iMac is hated by everyone who doesn't want a built-in display in their desktop computers so it's not a valid option. So our only options left are either an underpowered and downgraded Mac mini (which is itself now three years old - or five years old if you count from the 2012 Mac mini which was the last real update) or a not-really-upgradable, not-really-Pro-featured but pro-expensive trashcan Mac Pro which Apple themselves apologized about.
So no, I'm not "ignoring" anything.
MacRumors has almost as many Trolling Mac Haters on it than Slashdot. It's a serious problem on that Forum.
Try AppleInsider for a little more "rational" discourse.
By reading the comments you can clearly see they're not trolls. The complaints make sense.
#DeleteFacebook
And yet they are making billions off it. So maybe no one gives a shit about Apple sales of a completely different product with a completely different target market.
Come off it:
The Sales Figures seemed to combine the ENTIRE "Surface" brand of Products. That includes Laptops, Franken-Tablets, and even a Desktop.
Most of those products COMPLETELY overlap Apple target markets; in fact, they are CALCULATED to do JUST THAT.
So, if we want to include the iPad sales in with the Mac Sales (since the Surface Pro is at least tangentially aimed at that market), that 8:1 Ratio likely becomes more like 15:1.
In fact, even though Q1 2017 iPad sales were down, they still managed to completely eclipse the entire Surface line, at 5.3 BEELION dollars, or only slightly less than the 7.2 BEELION dollars in the more-expensive Mac sales. Read it and weep:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news...
So, adding 5.3 BEELION in iPad Sales to the 7.2 BEELION in Mac sales, we have a grand total of 12.5 BEELION Dollars in sales of products that are DIRECTLY COMPETING with the Surface "brand". So, if you do the math, that comes to a Ratio of 15.1:1.
Now, aren't you glad you brought that up?
And If the figures were reversed, I can assure you that you wouldn't be trying to "distinguish" those target markets between the two companies.
So, I repeat: COME OFF IT!
This, in a nutshell. Whenever a new product comes to market, especially one that fills a needed niche, initial sales are going to boom, provided the thing works decently. Not everyone in the word wants a tablet. Once the people who want one have gotten one, sales are going to taper off, assuming no particular competitor's device just hit the market and is markedly better.
If MS is making a big deal out this, it sounds to me like it's just a marketing excuse to perpetuate planned obsole$cence. Not all change is good, but sometimes change is made just for the sake of change, or maybe to justify certain people's stale positions in the company.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
By reading the comments you can clearly see they're not trolls. The complaints make sense.
Only to another Troll.
And I have thoroughly detailed arguments that factually show why their pseudo-complaints are specious, ridiculous and just plain untrue.
Hint: Look for posts by author "MacsRuleOthersDrool" for details.
The Sales Figures seemed to combine the ENTIRE "Surface" brand of Products.
Yeah. The Surface and those rarely sold books and the almost non-existant Surface desktop itself.
I'll stay right where I am, on the plane of reality thankyou very much. But hey since Apple is outstripping MS sales and has been for all these years there's no way Microsoft would release another such device because making money is not enough when someone else has higher sales and dumber fans right?
And you don't even know the difference between an iPad and an iPad pro. You really are just a fake.
Oh, that must explain why Apple themselves have apologized for the Mac Pro.
If there's a troll here, it's you.
What "must explain"?
While I have most certainly defended the 2016 MacBook Pro (and more particularly, the 15" TouchBar models), I haven't seriously "defended" the Trash Can Mac Pro, other than to say that, IMHO, Apple was clearly betting on a rapid adopition of Thunderbolt that is only now picking up speed; and that if TB had kicked butt early-on (like USB had years earlier), the Mac Pro would definitely been more popular.
And I also make no secret that it sounds like Apple IS listening to the Pro market, and is attempting to redefine their products to address a wider envelope of "Pro" applications. Why is that a "Bad Thing"?
Every Company, (especially "tech" companies), makes mistakes and gets sidetracked. But what matters is how quickly they realize the mistake and how accurately they correct for it. All I can say is that I have 41 years of experience with Apple products, and I can honestly say that Apple (while certainly not perfect!), does have a much better track record in both of those metrics than pretty much any other tech company (especially big ones). That's not fanboiism; its observation.
The Sales Figures seemed to combine the ENTIRE "Surface" brand of Products.
Yeah. The Surface and those rarely sold books and the almost non-existant Surface desktop itself.
I'll stay right where I am, on the plane of reality thankyou very much. But hey since Apple is outstripping MS sales and has been for all these years there's no way Microsoft would release another such device because making money is not enough when someone else has higher sales and dumber fans right?
And you don't even know the difference between an iPad and an iPad pro. You really are just a fake.
Oh, I know the (relatively small) difference between an iPad and an iPad Pro (primarily better digitizer (and one model with a larger display than any iPad), better SoC, Pencil Support) but I just can't find sales figures that break it out by model. Apple has those; but you and I don't.
And remember, it's you that said the Surface Books and Surface Studio sales weren't even worth considering. But the flaw in that "logic", as far as it "excusing" the Surface Line's relatively embarrassing sales performance, is that They've had that same ONE QUARTER Period to contribute to the Surface LINE's sales revenue as Apple's Mac and iPad Products did for Apple. But, as you pointed out, they just, er, didn't.
Why? A Quarter's Sales is a Quarter's Sales. All the products have been on the market for a full quarter. So no "adjustments" are necessary. These figures don't lie, and in fact, are actually quite illuminating.
Why do you keep posting about Apple sales? You're really fucking weird. Most people would feel self-conscious about being quite so fanboyish. Yes, Apple sell more stuff than Microsoft. Apple are just great. Relax.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Come off it:
The Sales Figures seemed to combine the ENTIRE "Surface" brand of Products. That includes Laptops, Franken-Tablets, and even a Desktop.
Most of those products COMPLETELY overlap Apple target markets; in fact, they are CALCULATED to do JUST THAT.
Holy shit, you're repetitive. Why do you care so much? You're worried people might think something bad about Apple?
Can't be bothered reading anymore comments on this article as I know about 20% of it is you with your fucking sales figures.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Come off it:
The Sales Figures seemed to combine the ENTIRE "Surface" brand of Products. That includes Laptops, Franken-Tablets, and even a Desktop.
Most of those products COMPLETELY overlap Apple target markets; in fact, they are CALCULATED to do JUST THAT.
Holy shit, you're repetitive. Why do you care so much? You're worried people might think something bad about Apple?
Can't be bothered reading anymore comments on this article as I know about 20% of it is you with your fucking sales figures.
Actually, only about 3 posts that weren't the result of some back-and-forth.