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Microsoft's Surface Revenue Drops By $285M (26%) (computerworld.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the below-the-Surface dept.

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.

1 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Not a big deal by mattmarlowe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?