Microsoft Slashes Prices On Surface 330
McGruber writes "Thursday, The Verge broke the news that Microsoft was slashing the price of its tablets — the price of the 32-gig Surface RT plummeted by 42%! Staples, TigerDirect and many other retailers are already selling the tablets at the lowered prices. I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"
Price Adjustment (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:5, Funny)
"I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"
Salute them as 'early adopters' and congratulate them for getting in early to avoid the rush.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:4, Interesting)
So the more intellectual question is what is next if the surface fails?
I do not know of any ARM rt devices out there. I heard a rumor about an Acer but have never seen it.
Will this mean Windows 9 will be part of the WIndows 7 lineage and not WIndows 8/Windows mobile? Or will MS try a surface 2 and keep blowing money into it like they did with Bing and xbox for over a half a decade before they broke even? (Does bing make money yet?)
Personally I kind of got excited when it came out as Apple has a monopoly on the tablet market since they banned Samsung and other droid tablets out of the market here in the US for using icons and rounded corners. I have seen 1 android tablet in my lifetime by someone and that is it as everyone loves their ipads. But the surface lacked even a GPU unit and no cell phone service WTF. How usefull is this POS if I can not even get a map and weather reports if I am on the road? Seriously.
The surface pro still doesn't have either making it just a laptop and not a tablet and no disk space
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an android tablet. I like it just fine. Apple was not an impediment to me buying one.
I generally end up with iPhones, but that's mostly because work keeps giving me them, and I see no reason to buy an android phone simply because it isn't Apple. For a tablet, though, I prefer something I can play with (and root if need be) and not have to deal with Apple getting in my way.
The RT stuff was doomed from the get-go. MS was offering a product for a need that no one has, and they didn't provide anything better than the existing products in the market.
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:5, Funny)
What are you saying you heretic!
Bill says that in order to do serious Enterprise work, you need a stylus, a keyboard and Microsoft Office. The Surface RT has all three [well, you need to spring for the keyboard and stylus, but oh, that satisfying 'click' when you attach the keyboard to the Surface]!
And Bill knows!
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I own a surface pro, that's a very nice form factor for Windows 8. I'm a Mac guy and I'd say it is likely the best secondary computing device around. Big enough to work as a bad laptop, small enough to act as a tablet. Powerful enough to run Windows 7 and Windows 8 hardware. Capacitive touch screen for Metro application. Resistive touchscreen for OneNote and other classic tablet applications.
If you need a powerful machine it can't be your primary. It is a pity that no one is really making truly powerfu
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can not even get a map and weather reports
I don't know how anyone got around before, we must have all just been lost and looking at the sky.
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:4, Funny)
> Will this mean Windows 9 will be part of the WIndows 7 lineage and not WIndows 8/Windows mobile?
We can only dream. Hey, if Intel could admit Pentium 4 was a horrible mistake, Microsoft can do the same with Metro.
One of my coworkers put it well... Microsoft has turned so many people so vehemently against Metro by virtue of fucking up Windows 8 in its name, if you forced him to choose between:
a) walking around the mall wearing a leather jockstrap and high heels, or
b) being seen at DefCon or BlackHat using a Surface tablet,
he'd sigh, put on the leather jockstrap, and try to not break his neck walking in heels... because he values his good name and reputation too much to be seen in public with something as scorned and taboo as a WindowsRT tablet.
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:5, Insightful)
> the Surface had giant FAIL written all over it almost from the start
Well, the RT definitely did. I don't think it's clear yet whether the "Surface Pro" (or whatever they called it -- the one on Intel that actually runs Windows) is worthy of the FAIL sticker just yet.
It's important to keep the RT (WinCE warmed over) and the Pro separate. They're distinct products. Although, I wonder whether the RT is dragging the Pro down with it.
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:5, Interesting)
I firmly believe that the Surface Pro has, at the very least, a decent niche with only two competitors: Samsung Ativ Smart PC/Smart PC Pro and Sony Vaio duo 11/13. The former has atrocious build quality (keyboard connector has one pin covered by plastic) and shows signs of being rushed to market (Even the official screen protector film is labeled inside-out). The latter is heavy, has an inferior digitizer (Wacom on Surface Pro/Samsungs vs. N-Trig) and in my experience, Sony does its best to sneak out of paying for warranty repairs. Additionally, both have questionable software at best (Horrible Samsung drivers, traditional Sony bloatware).
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Re:Price Adjustment (Score:5, Insightful)
I firmly believe that the Surface Pro has, at the very least, a decent niche with only two competitors
I'm typing this from a ThinkPad Helix, which I decided to purchase as I felt it offered me a little bit more of what I was looking for than the Surface Pro did. It's definitely got its faults, but it's worth pointing out that they're Lenovo's faults rather than anything to do with Windows.
It's the right product for me, but the thing holding it back is---of course---the price. Microsoft has a huge advantage with x86 being on their side, but unless they can get the platform down to a price that's competitive with other products in the same market, at the rate things are going that advantage provided by the platform itself will likely evaporate as other platforms' app catalogs close the gap and render the advantage of "being Wintel" completely moot.
That's not to say that we're not at least halfway there already. An iPad is a paradoxically capable device in a world that Microsoft has ruled for decades on compatibility and ubiquity alone, especially given the limitations of the hardware and form factor itself.
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:4, Informative)
Surface was never meant to compete with the iPad. It's more like a laptop/tablet hybrid. The iPad is about mini-apps, mostly viewing data and playing simple games. There are exceptions but look at it this way: Surface comes with a keyboard and stand designed into the form factor, the iPad is a purely hand-held touch operated device.
Microsoft's target market is people who want to work on Windows creating documents or writing longish emails but also want a tablet form factor they can easily carry with them or use hand-held for viewing. Of course being Microsoft they completely failed to communicate this and further confused things by having two different platforms with the introduction of RT.
The point is that it should really be compared to netbooks or Chromebooks, in which case it was still massively overpriced but an interesting twist on the idea.
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:4, Interesting)
Not netbooks, ultrabooks. It's mostly comparable to an ultrabook in the format of a tablet. From that point of view, it works. Netbooks were always intended for extra-lightweight content creation and consumption. Chromebooks seem to be an attempt at throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. If you a look at the Surface Pro like something you can easily carrry around but still do some heavier (non-GPU) tasks if needed (the flexibility of full Windows helps a lot), it makes sense and is decently priced, considering its competitors.
External connectivity is a bit more limited, but still workable - that's the major difference between it and ultrabooks, besides screen size.
Re:Price Adjustment (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that my Helix has an Intel chip in it is enough for me to want it as the device that fits my needs as a tablet---aided greatly by the fact that it actually IS a tablet. With the catalogs of apps available on iOS and Android being so comprehensive, the benefit of the Helix's or Surface's pedigree doesn't shine as bright as it would have even a year ago. That benefit of course is that I can run damn near anything on it if I need to, "Full Windows" included. If that benefit itself becomes wholly irrelevant by the time Windows becomes cost-competitive in the tablet platform, then its market in that platform will cease to exist.
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It's important to keep the RT (WinCE warmed over)
WRONG It's actually windows 8 compiled for arm.
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But it might as well be completely different.
With Linux, a developer can compile to an target platform and make it available. And since sources are often available, someone else's program can be ported to a different target CPU.
With Windows RT, programs can only be installed from the Microsoft Store. So whether or not they're compatible is irrelevant. Both the original developer and Microsoft have to agree that it should be made available for RT before it can run there. So having commonality with Win8 i
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The difference is I can download the source for most Linux apps.
The other difference is that MS crippled their arm port of windows so that all non-ms apps had to use the UI/libraries formally known as metro rather than the traditional windows UI and APIs. So rather than simply recompiling for arm developers (whether open or closed source) have to reegineer their apps for metro and then distribute them through microsofts store (where MS takes a cut of course).
Yes I'm aware there is a hack to bypass the crippling but a hack that could go away at any time is not something
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Users do not understand what "compiled for arm" means... If they see a product marketed as windows, then they expect it to be able to do the same things that the version of windows they're used to can. This is why users were often disappointed with wince laptops and windows mobile phones, the branding creates expectations which are then not met.
Linux on arm with a few small exceptions *can* have the same catalogue of software as linux on x86, you can have firefox, libreoffice etc... Debian for arm has almos
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You had me at "Meh if you were dumb enough to buy one"
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... but considering we are talking about a company with a history of abandoning products that don't become hits (Zune, Sidekick,Kin,WinPhone 7) do you REALLY want to take the chance?
I'm no MSFT fan, but another way of saying this is that they abandoned products that weren't profitable. Why would any company do otherwise?
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This particular company runs ad campaigns attempting to vilify its competitors for doing the same, with the very argument that GP used.
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Sure, it's possible. But why would they?
For Apple, it didn't cost much, if anything, given the high margins on their products and that a fair amount of gift card receivers could be expected to buy more than the gift card's worth while in the store anyhow, all of which would go back to Apple.
For Microsoft, the situation is somewhat different.
And why do people who bought something before a price drop feel entitled to anything? They bought at what they thought was a fair price. Whether to buy now or hold ou
How about a free brown Zune? (Score:5, Funny)
"I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"
Microsoft has great products they can use to compensate those early adopters.
How about a brown Zune?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune#Sales)
Or maybe a WebTV?
(http://slashdot.org/story/13/07/07/1224244/microsoft-says-goodbye-to-webtvmsn-tv)
Well Zune Pass has got to work (ForSure)!
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Re:Price Adjustment (Score:5, Interesting)
If the direction of the price change was the opposite; say a $150 price increase. Could they reasonably expect every buyer to come in and pay the difference?
Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
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Yea, so for $350 these are still basically just expensive paperweights.
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You can jailbreak all winRT devices.
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http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ [defectivebydesign.org]
Never would I by defective equipment from the start.
Not yet cheap enough to build a Beowolf Cluster (Score:2)
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Help me I am trying to swap my Ford engine for a Chevy and it won't fit!
Re:Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
I have seen that done actually!
It seems that neither Ford nor Chevy go out of their way to make that any harder than it naturally is, unlike Microsoft.
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I have wondered that myself, I know it requires a signed kernel and you can not turn off secure boot, but many distros are having Microsoft sign their kernels and bootloaders, ubuntu has paid the ms signing fee as I understand, so would it be possible to boot ubuntu on rt?
Still overpriced (Score:5, Funny)
It's a first-gen hardware product from Microsoft, they should have to pay you for the headaches you're inevitably going to have
WOOT! (Score:2)
Just wait... $149, nine months from now.
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Just wait... $149, nine months from now.
And by then, someone will have worked out how to install Android on it.
Re:Still overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)
Agree. The best thing for these devices is land fill. They have no purpose existing.
The hardware is interesting; it's the OS (Windows RT) that's sinking it. If we could figure out how to install something else, the device might get a new lease on life.
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Agree. The best thing for these devices is land fill. They have no purpose existing.
The hardware is interesting; it's the OS (Windows RT) that's sinking it. If we could figure out how to install something else, the device might get a new lease on life.
You can jailbreak it. XDA Forums have a list of apps recompiled for it. You can also run powershell and .net apps.
They are in such demand (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that the correct spin?
Lets face it. Microsoft has tried to push the "Convertible laptop / tablet" on the market since 2000 (even before maybe?) - and no one wants it. They simply cannot grasp that it isn't what the consumer (even enterprise wants). People want tablets to consume content, not create it.
Re:They are in such demand (Score:5, Informative)
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That is not exactly true. I would want a Surface badly. However, the only version that has a worthwhile ecosystem of software is the Pro tablet (full Windows version). And the Pro tablet is about 4X overpriced.
If MS came to market with only 128Gb Surface pro, threw in a cover keyboard and priced the package at $300, then it would fly off the shelves. Just becuase they mis-priced the offering does not mean noone wants it.
Re:They are in such demand (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I want coke to cost 1 euro per gram, also retail Windows 8 should cost 10 euros and Windows Server 2012 Datacenter would cost 80 euros at most (granting you a license to install on 15 physical machines).
That's not possible yet, so an option is to get drunk with red wine and use linux.
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That is not exactly true. I would want a Surface badly. However, the only version that has a worthwhile ecosystem of software is the Pro tablet (full Windows version). And the Pro tablet is about 4X overpriced.
If MS came to market with only 128Gb Surface pro, threw in a cover keyboard and priced the package at $300, then it would fly off the shelves. Just becuase they mis-priced the offering does not mean noone wants it.
True for the most part, although you still have to deal with Windows 8. Throw in Win7 and it's a deal.
Re:They are in such demand (Score:4, Interesting)
The Pro already sells just fine (contrary to Slashdot's never-with-citations snide comments; I know folks who work at MS (comes of being in the tech industry in this part of the country) and they have trouble keeping the up with demand. You can't buy a big clunky laptop with the Surface Pro's SSD, CPU, RAM, and resolution for $300 (I doubt you could get it for $600); are you insane? Throw in the capacitive touchscreen and Wacom stylus digitizer, ultra-thin keyboard, lightweight but absurdly durable vapor-deposited magnesium chassis, USB3, dual webcams, etc. and... yeah, no. The total manufacturing price is probably still well under $1000, but after all the additional expences of getting a product to market, $1200 is a good deal at that price.
Obviously, it might not be a good deal that you personally are interested in, but you do not represent the whole market. For people who want a portable, durable, and powerful computer usable either as a tablet or a laptop - and they do exist, for sure - it's an excellent price. The market is bearing it admirably.
RT... not so much. The hardware is excellent, but the OS really is stupid. By changing a single flag in the kernel, they could remove the "MS-signed-only" restriction from desktop apps (there has been a hack out there for months which does it for you at bootup). They could add "desktop apps compiled for ARM" to the already-existing dekstop apps (for x86) section of the store, in addition to the Metro-style apps. They could include an x86 dynamic recompilation layer - a single volunteer developer has hacked up a pretty good basic one already, and the stuff he's having trouble with is the stuff that MS (with their access to the Windows source code) could fix trivially - for running old or simple x86 apps without recompilation (since it thunks to the native ARM system libraries where possible, the performance is much better than one might expect, though still years behind modern x86).
Microsoft seems determined to drive that platform into the ground, though.
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300 bucks pays for the processor and the screen, maybe. Your expectations are unreasonable.
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For it to be "dirt cheap" means you lose most of its specs.
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The goal of a company isn't to move units, it's to make money. Saying they could move units if they sold them -- what amounts to basically giving them away -- isn't a revelation.
Re:They are in such demand (Score:5, Insightful)
Who else does a reasonable spec tablet with 128GB of storage for $300?
You should be comparing it to cheap laptops, not cheap tablets. That's basically what you want - a small laptop with touchscreen and detachable keyboard. Finding a reasonable quality one with 128GB of storage for $300 may again prove challenging.
Re:They are in such demand (Score:5, Insightful)
While it's quite possible to 'create' and do 'useful work' on a tablet it certainly seems more geared towards consumption. What Microsoft hasn't understood is that people use their software because they have to at work.
Office is not compelling. IE is not compelling. This is Microsofts attempt to move their monopoly to a new computing sector. It won't work. People don't want to use their software.
Re:They are in such demand (Score:5, Insightful)
>"This is Microsofts attempt to move their monopoly to a new computing sector. It won't work. People don't want to use their software."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Microsoft simply does not understand that their "popularity" in the computing market is mostly due due to their proprietary lock-in, and not due to free market choice and preference.
I bet if they offered IDENTICAL hardware to all the Android and IOS tablets for an IDENTICAL price, they still would not be able to sell enough to matter.
serious problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"
Really, if those people joined together they might be able fill a Starbucks. Imagine if they started a protest against Microsoft, the damage they could do......
Microsoft will do the same thing they did when they came out with the Zune to help all those people who bought "Plays For Sure" music, nothing at all.
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OK but when Microsoft says it "Plays for sure" you can be sure that it doesn't, otherwise they wouldn't put so much emphasis on a simple thing like playing music.
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OK but when Microsoft says it "Plays for sure" you can be sure that it doesn't, otherwise they wouldn't put so much emphasis on a simple thing like playing music.
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OK but when Microsoft says it "Plays for sure" you can be sure that it doesn't, otherwise they wouldn't put so much emphasis on a simple thing like playing music.
"Plays for sure" is what MS Translate spits out when you enter "arbeit macht frei."
What Microsoft will do about previous customers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cash the check.
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People who bought prior to price drop (Score:2)
I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?
MS should do nothing. They were among the few people to buy something above the value the market would ultimately be willing to accept.
This is not Microsoft's responsibility to deal with.
When you buy something, you should be doing your due diligence to make sure you are getting more in product value than cash value you are trading for it.
If you make a bad trade: it's not the manufacturer's duty to tr
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I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?
MS should do nothing. They were among the few people to buy something above the value the market would ultimately be willing to accept.
This is not Microsoft's responsibility to deal with.
When you buy something, you should be doing your due diligence to make sure you are getting more in product value than cash value you are trading for it.
If you make a bad trade: it's not the manufacturer's duty to try and console you about your decisionmaking error.
Agreed. In all fairness, I feel the same about the iphone. I appear to be alone in that, though.
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I agree. Folks who paid the higher price must have felt it was worth it to them.
Both of them.
Bad math (Score:5, Informative)
the price of the 32-gig Surface RT plummeted by 42%
That's wrong - the price has been reduced by 30%. The new price of the 32 gig Surface is $349. The original price was $499 (the price of all models is being reduced by $150). You divide the discount by the original price, not the new reduced price, to find the percentage reduction. 150/499=30% (150/349 is indeed 42%, but that is meaningless in this case)
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> The new price of the 32 gig Surface is $349.
It's STILL that high? Why is this even news? "Today the Surface RT went from really stupendously overpriced to merely shockingly overpriced." Move along, nothing to see here.
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Cough.. HP Touchpad Cough... (Score:5, Insightful)
This remind people of anything much?
Entirely unsurprising, good riddance.
Re:Cough.. HP Touchpad Cough... (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference with the touchpad is that the fire-sale price was 1/2 to 1/3 of these devices.
Furthermore, it wasn't nearly as locked down. There are some fairly nice android distributions for the touchpad, and it was as easy to root as typing "webos20090606" into the search bar. Plus, there is a fairly large homebrew community, providing everything from an xserver and ubuntu like environments to popular game emulators (NES/etc) allowing access to large catalogs of applications not originally written for the device.
Best darn $250 i've spent in years (I got one with a touchstone, case and keyboard), as I also provide one of the more popular applications in the app store and its more than paid for the device and the few dozen hours I spent porting/writting the app.
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The difference is, HP intentionally killed the Touchpad. They bought the IP, released the product, and then lost their nerve. This is almost the opposite of what is happening with the RT.
Better idea - inform the consumer (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now MS adverts for the surface are nothing more than hipster dipshits dancing on a boardroom table and spining the Surface around. There is nothing infomative, nothing to tell the consumer why they might consider purchasing this vs. an Ipad or a decent Android tablet.
MS can't act like Apple. People already know why they might like to have an iPad. They either own one or have a fiend who does. Surface doesn't have familiarity to fall back on. It looks like an overgrown Zune and unless MS tells people otherwise they will assume it's just an "also ran" in the tablet race.
Slashing prices it nice but it reaks of desperation. I might be tempted to think they are dumping existing inventory prior to dropping the product line.
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Right now MS adverts for the surface are nothing more than hipster dipshits dancing on a boardroom table and spining the Surface around. There is nothing infomative, nothing to tell the consumer why they might consider purchasing this vs. an Ipad or a decent Android tablet.
I have come to suspect the reason for this is that there is no reason to purchase this device, and they know it.
MS can't act like Apple. People already know why they might like to have an iPad. They either own one or have a fiend who does. Surface doesn't have familiarity to fall back on. It looks like an overgrown Zune and unless MS tells people otherwise they will assume it's just an "also ran" in the tablet race.
Slashing prices it nice but it reaks of desperation. I might be tempted to think they are dumping existing inventory prior to dropping the product line.
Oh, MS *can* act like Apple in this way, and I would fully expect them to. For a long long time, Microsoft ruled certain segments of the market, (still does, in fact) and "you'll buy it because it's Windows" has been ingrained in Microsoft corporate culture for so long that they can't help but continue to act like that, even in areas where it's clearly not working for them. It'd take a complete
Re:Better idea - inform the consumer (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now MS adverts for the surface are nothing more than hipster dipshits dancing on a boardroom table and spining the Surface around ... MS can't act like Apple.
iPad and iPhone ads are actually pretty good about showing you in succinct ways what you can do with the product. They're usually made up of quick, targeted clips of apps in use. It's kind of flabbergasted me that Microsoft hasn't done the same thing with their TV ads, especially when it comes to Office. It's almost as if their marketing dept. came to the conclusion that "We have to fight Apple on their own terms" without actually sitting down to watch how Apple markets its products.
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iPad and iPhone ads are actually pretty good about showing you in succinct ways what you can do with the product.
They were solely focused on use cases, until these series of ads came out. Our signature. [youtube.com] I find these ads ridiculously pretentious. Apple has earned that right to be pretentious, but I do wish they went back to their old style of showing the product doing something cool.
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> It's kind of flabbergasted me that Microsoft hasn't done the same thing with their TV ads
I'm not surprised at all. It's not possible to demonstrate actually apps and not have the consumer coming away thinking "it's just like Windows, only smaller".
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It's not really news that a Microsoft marketing strategy sucks. For such a big, rich company - they sure don't seem to know how to pick a decent ad agency.
Actually that's not really fair to the agencies involved. I know someone who has worked on numerous product launch campaigns for Microsoft. According to him, invariably someone high up at Microsoft screws up the campaign by insisting something irrelevant be included, some unimportant feature be given the main highlight... or even rewriting the entire camp
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I think the ads are quite effective, but I still don't know anyone who has a Surface.
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Translation: (Score:3)
"Everything else failed, lets sell them at cost price."
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"Everything else failed, lets sell them at cost price."
But but but... did they really cost $350 to produce? Cost must have been lower than that, right?
Still costs $449 or $549 (Score:2)
If you want the plastic keyboard shown in ads, that's $100 and if you want 64GB flash instead of 32GB that's another $100 (dunno if the tablet has micro SD?)
That can be serious desktop or laptop money. For instance here [ldlc.com]'s a 11.6" laptop with ivy bridge Celeron, 240GB flash, bluetooth 4.0 for about what a keyboard + 64GB Surface costs.
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You really need that 64 GB version too (Score:3)
Because of how bloated Windows 8 is, a serious chunk of storage space isn't available at all to the user. You might think 32 GB oughta be enough for anyone, but half of that is reserved for the system.
According to Microsoft:
* The 32 GB version has approximately 15 GB free hard disk space.
* The 64 GB version has approximately 45 GB free hard disk space.
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/storage-files-and-folders/surface-disk-space-faq [microsoft.com]
Sad thing is (Score:2, Informative)
- need Office
- but no other Windows App because those don't run on RT (bneither does AD, Outlook... none of the "pro" stuff)
- and no other serious App in general, because Win8-RT is still missing a *good* apps for the basics (RSS, dlna, multi-format video player, etc etc)
- no games except a handful
- not want 7", nor any weird stuff (phone with your 3G...)
- b
HP TouchPads... (Score:2)
This is what happened right before HP gave up on tablets...
I can tell you (Score:3)
The same thing they will do for customers who purchased a tablet right after the price drop [photobucket.com]
Obligatory question (Score:2)
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Not really, but you can buy cheaper Android tablets.
Still don't see a use for it (Score:2)
Even at $350, as someone who uses Windows primarily on desktop and laptop (okay, Linux on servers), I just can't see what I'd do with it. Drop the Surface Pro down to that price and now I'm interested.
Microsoft wants to be Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft desperately wants to be Apple, that much should be obvious by now. With all the dancing hipster ads for Surface trying to appear cool and in touch, it just... doesn't... work.
Microsoft still has something of a business/corporate reputation. They make operating systems to run Office on, to perform spreadsheet work, boring but necessary work. That's their image. Apple deliberately target non-business customers in the vast majority of their products and marketing - they have for a while now and that is THEIR image. Microsoft can't just try to perform a 180 and appear like Apple - that's like a 50 year old Steve Buscemi trying to act hip to young people by saying "How do you do, fellow kids?" It's comedic when done by an actor - but embarrassing when done by a corporation.
They say a business must grow or die. Microsoft have reached the limits of desktop operating systems - they've owned their sector for so long that they can't grow in it. That's fine, go for it. But emulating Apple when there already IS an Apple is not a strategy for a leader to take.
Windows needs new branding (Score:3)
Clams have hands! (Score:3)
Re:Is it possible to run Linux on these? (Score:5, Informative)
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Why pay $39.99 for something to squash spiders when you can buy a large book for less?
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$349 is a lot to spend just for Outlook.
Re:Awesome! (Score:4, Funny)
That's a fantastic deal, especially now that RT devices come with Outlook. I need to pick one of these up.
But... didn't the company issue you one?
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I am no Steve Ballmer (I can never decide where to put the chairs). I would however, be well prepared for the meeting tomorrow morning. My suggestion would be a nice thank-you card and a voucher for a free upgraded ultra-sensitive microphone for your XBox One.
I wonder what Microsoft will do for customers who purchased a tablet right before the price drop?"
God, that's funny. I just had an epiphany. When it's time to rearrange the deck chairs (think about it...) Ballmer will have gotten good enough to just toss them to the correct spot.
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I want to know where the flying chairs screensaver and the Ballmer as Donkey Kong throwing chairs are. Surely someone talented has had the same ideas I have.