Microsoft Surface Drowning? 337
hcs_$reboot (1536101) writes Again, not much good news for the MS Surface. Computerworld reports a Microsoft's losses on the tablet device at $US1.7 billion so far. But, still, Microsoft is serene: "It's been exciting to see the response to the Surface Pro 3 from individuals and businesses alike. In fact, Surface Pro 3 sales are already outpacing prior versions of Surface Pro. The Surface business generated more than $2B in revenue for the fiscal year 2014 and $409 million in revenue during Q4 FY14 alone, the latter of which included just ten days of Intel Core i5 Surface Pro 3 sales in Canada and the US." Should Microsoft pull the plug on the tablet? Or maybe it's just a matter of users getting used to the Surface? Even if they're losing money on the Pro 3, Microsoft has seemingly little to be ashamed of when it comes to reviews of the hardware.
It's a still a nice PC. (Score:3, Insightful)
For years I hated MS. But of late they are doing really nice work and getting mocked despite doing real innovation. It feels weird to like MS as an underdog, but that's what it's come to. And I will be be getting a Surface 3 - it's the one that finally kills it in terms of compact size and decent computing power. I just gotta save up cuz it's not a cheap machine.
Confusing the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
The loss isn't on one device, it's on a series of devices in two different product lines (RT and Pro). The Surface Pro 3 is a particular device in a particular line. You can't just get the 1.7 billion back on the previous products by cutting the newest device. There isn't enough data here to make a call on whether Microsoft should "pull the plug on the tablet" because we don't have any idea whether the new one makes money, nor any way to extrapolate from the spotty old data.
What we can notice is the conspicuous absence of a Surface RT 3 -- it appears like the RT line was a big anchor and is being cut loose, and the Pro line may be legitimately successful. The Pro line was generally praised by reviewers. The RT line...not so much.
I have a Lenovo Miix 2 11" (Score:5, Insightful)
If they bundled the keyboard with these things they'd sell a hell of a lot more of them. They're not bad devices, just too expensive. And let's be blunt, Windows without a keyboard is worse than fucking useless.
Pick your poison (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it an almost-2-pound tablet, or is it a small light laptop with a crummy keyboard? You decide!
(Yes I have used the keyboard)
Re:Confusing the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it might have enjoyed more success if they had added x86 emulation and LLVM-esque runtime support to Visual Studio and C++ so a large portion of desktop apps could be recompiled for it.
Re:The problem of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
By building products that are incompatible with others and refusing to open up Office files, they have implanted themself as the evil company in the mindset of those afffected. Those affected are those that realise that the world is always changing and want to be free to use any product.
I doubt there are that many people outside of the stereotypical Slashdot demographic who view Microsoft the way you are describing them. Most people I know of know Microsoft as simply the company who makes the software they are familiar with. Apple is far more often thought of as a "closed off" ecosystem than Microsoft. As far as other major technology companies go, Google is the only one I can think of that people feel is more "good" than Microsoft, and with privacy concerns starting to spread to the general population this could be changing.
The only thing standing against Microsoft in the eyes of the general public is that most mobile software is available for Apple/Android, not Microsoft. It is the exact same problem Apple/Linux had in the desktop battle of the last decade. Almost no one is making their tablet/phone purchasing decision based on how "evil" the company making the device is.
Microsoft cannot fool all the people all the time (Score:2, Insightful)
Everybody went in for Windows as their favoutte desktop operating system a couple decades back. After XP, there is little to be gained from Microsoft's latter offerings in operating systems. So now we are seeing large migrations to Linux and larger numbers still sticking on with XP.
In the tablet marketplace, Microsoft is a recent entrant. iPad and Android tablets comfortably have more than 90% marketshare in this segment.
Microsoft started out with restrictions on what processor, screen size and memory can be offered by OEMs in tablet form factor, to try and prevent tablets eating away their desktop marketshare.
Then MS provided a convoluted method of delivering apps for tablet devices compared to desktop apps with similar functionality and architecture. Developers boycotted the entire Surface market as a result.
And the Surface is priced more than twice that of a laptop, despite the latter providing more usability and applications, once the OS is upgraded from 8 to 7. Yes, I meant upgraded, it wasn't a typo.
The moral of the story is You Cant Fool All The People All The Time, as Lincoln famously said. Remove the lock on the bootloader in all Surface tablet categories, Allow all Surfaces to connect to the Active Directory, Come up with more meaningful development tools and app for ARM Surface tablets, and lastly price it between $100 to $300 in varying configurations. People might be tempted to take notice.
Re:The problem of Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt there are that many people outside of the stereotypical Slashdot demographic who view Microsoft the way you are describing them.
Clearly you are not talking to the people who are paying the Microsoft tax. Microsoft's repeated licensing changes which have made it ever more expensive to be correctly licensed have made them no friends and many enemies. These are NOT the generic slashdot crowd, they are the people who look at the year over year increases in licensing wondering why they have to pay more for the same services. MS's bundling of supplementary services -- which they neither want nor need doesn't justify the increases for them.
Re:Microsoft cannot fool all the people all the ti (Score:3, Insightful)
He wrote it from the user's viewpoint. Not poweruser or developer.
For the average Joe, each Windows version changes everything but adds very few new things.
Re:Embrace or Expire? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been slipping away for about a decade. You should be quicker at noticing things :)
But seriously, they have been transitioning to a more service-based company. They're basically pulling an IBM.
Re:Microsoft cannot fool all the people all the ti (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe how sentimental people were towards a junkpile like XP
Sentimental, eh? More like hard-nosed and very very practical and down to earth.
Will XP get my real useful application software running? YES.
Will my software run on 7 or 8? NO.
So, no sentiment towards Microsoft - simply stick with what works.
Stuff that works isn't junkpile; stuff that consumes more space but gets in the way of getting work done is a large pile of junk. So the adjective suits Windows 7 or 8, not XP.
Re:The problem of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt there are that many people outside of the stereotypical Slashdot demographic who view Microsoft the way you are describing them. Most people I know of know Microsoft as simply the company who makes the software they are familiar with. Apple is far more often thought of as a "closed off" ecosystem than Microsoft.
You are contradicting yourself. The first part is right - many people don't see Microsoft the way that many slashdotters see them. The second part is wrong - most people don't see Apple the way that some slashdotters see them.
Re:Confusing the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardly. Intel's efforts despite how poor they may have been early on started way before the Surface RT was on the radar. The Atom line which was Intel's first real foray into low-power devices pre-dates the original Surface by 4 years.
What you say still holds true, just that it wasn't the surface that was the catalyst, it was phones / tables replacing general purpose computing devices. You could almost blame Android for this more than anything.
Surface Pro is not the problem ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The standard Surface line, or in other words the "we want to be Apple line" is the problem.
Re:Confusing the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
I still think RT could have worked as a corporate tablet. Make it integrate 100% with AD and everything, give it built-in Office, and give bulk discounts when buying over a dozen of them. But no, Microsoft was blinded by the dreams of the consumer market, despite it being owned by Android/iPad, and so they missed the one niche they really could have nailed with it.
Re:The problem of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the non-techie people I know despise Windows and Microsoft because they can't keep their computers running for six months without having to take it to the "Geek Squad" and have it disinfected. They could give a shit about openness, but they just don't understand why Microsoft can't make Windows work. The Techie people I know hate Microsoft because their past behavior. The president of one company I consult for hates Microsoft and wishes they could switch to something else, but their very expensive modelling and accounting software only runs on Windows.
When most of your customers hate you, it's not usually a very good long term prospect.
Re:The problem of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are just the direct costs of compliance. The indirect costs of Microsoft's licensing model are something that even fewer users realize. You can't customize a distro and legally release the result to anyone outside of the organizational unit holding the license. You can't slipstream updates and legally distribute to outside parties. You can't create USB bootable media and legally release it to anyone else. Rescue discs and installation discs customized for particular hardware are left to the mercy of your OEM. All of these restrictions cause considerable friction which slows down the agility of your business. If nothing else, it makes it very hard to outsource IT functions; at most, you can hire contractors who have to keep your OS software bits separate from everyone else's OS software bits. How can this situation possibly compare favorably to free software where anyone can create and share anything? It really can't.
Re: Microsoft cannot fool all the people all the t (Score:3, Insightful)
I totally agree. Windows changes things from version to version for the sake of change. Where is the value add from going to new versions of windows? Why don't they quit messing with the UX and polish and harden the OS.
Silly figure (Score:4, Insightful)
If one reads the computerworld article it makes far weaker claims than this post. It is talking about revenue and cost of revenue. It isn't clear about inventory on hand so to get a maximum figure it marks the manufactured but unsold Surface 3's at $0. Part of a $733 million charge came from the Surface mini (developed and never shipped). There never was any claim remotely as strong as Microsoft having lost close to $1.7b in a meaningful sense. This figure is coming from:
a) Whisper down the lane where articles are summarizing each other getting successively less qualified in their calculations.
b) Accounting being boring so the article writers not understanding what the original analyst (Jan Dawson at Jackdaw Research) was doing.
Re:Confusing the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
What we can notice is the conspicuous absence of a Surface RT 3 -- it appears like the RT line was a big anchor and is being cut loose, and the Pro line may be legitimately successful. The Pro line was generally praised by reviewers. The RT line...not so much.
The problem as I see it is that Microsoft has a mammoth credibility issue. They've used up their allotment of fuckup forgiveness. Starting largely with Vista, then throw in some other botched up stuff like Zune, Surface RT, The entire Windows 8 debacle,Windows phone - and it's not terribly surprising that people might be resistant to what might otherwise be a fine instrument.
Re:Confusing the issue (Score:2, Insightful)
My wife has an iPad and personally I find that it's a real pain to do things that should be easily do-able.
SO what you are saying is that no one should buy it because you have trouble with it?
Re:Embrace or Expire? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft cannot fool all the people all the ti (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, how do you plan for that? Executives in that company had no idea. Software was like "buildings" to them back in 1998, you build a corporate office space, spend 20 million bucks, then you just have to change lightbulbs for 30 years. They never expected the foundation to suddenly change into a different material out from under the building, and why would they, that isn't how engineering works.
I mean, I think they are finally coming around, but honestly, they went from being the only commercial mainframes in the country, to being huge commercial software consumers without changing their working methodologies, and in april they all had to pay for that...
Still it was probably a lot cheaper than "sticking with the times" for 15 years where they essentially were not paying the "cycle cost" of modern software.
Re:Pick your poison (Score:4, Insightful)
How about a one device fits everything, great for note taking and doing work on but not so hot for writing novels or playing shitty games on the bus.
Only Microsoft thinks they can produce one product that does everything. That one device, operating system, or software doesn't exist. There are too many use cases, physical constraints, and cost constraints to be the One Electronic Gadget to Rule Them All.
Seriously. I love my desktop computer because it's got an awesome keyboard and fabulous screen real estate. It can download a full CD in under 15 seconds. I can write for hours in one window with a reference manual open right next to it. I love my phone because it fits in my pocket and I can have nearly instantaneous access to all the details of my life I no longer bother to memorize. That it lacks a keyboard is almost entirely irrelevant, because the demand "fits in my pocket" precludes any kind of extensive i/o. Laptop and tablet are both compromises that compromise portability and extensive user input in different ways.
If MS could make a desktop-functional computer with a real keyboard and 27" viewing device that I could fold up and put in my pocket; that I could also ask which stop I'm supposed to get off while crammed among other subway riders; and that I could use as an electronic clipboard, I would be all over it. But outside of a Transformers movie, no such thing is possible. That Microsoft keeps trying to build it only reveals that they fail to understand optimization. It's the same reason Stanley sells a hell of a lot more screwdrivers than Leatherman sells multitools.
Re:Embrace or Expire? (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM provides service? Not from what I've seen lately. In fact, I'm not sure what IBM provides any more except a way for companies with too much money on their hands with a drain to pour it down.
I count the actual Beginning of the End for Microsoft to be about Windows 2003 - when they stopped being Santa with all the freeebies and started being the Grinch - restricting some kinds of multimedia and copy-protecting the OS (before then, the security keys were mostly cosmetic).
Still, with Windows 8, they basically fell off a cliff.
MacOS, Android, and yes, even Linux on the Desktop are now all "good enough", but for a lot of people, Windows 8 isn't. And Windows never had dominance for being actually superior, just for being "good enough".