If the new 7.5" Surface, reputed to sell for $400.00, runs Windows RT, it's obviously DOA, since total worldwide sales of ALL RT devices in 1Q2013 was only 200,000 from ALL vendors.
If the 7.5" Surface runs Windows 8, then it will be underpowered for that price, and most likely the true cost for a functioning unit will be $500.00 with necessary "upgrades". It's very unlikely there will be a compelling reason for very many people to want to buy a tiny Windows device at this price point.
Even worse, massive advertising won't help Microsoft sell either of these things, because their previous ridiculous Surface ads and the subsequent failure of the Surfaces being advertised are still fresh in the minds of anyone who was paying attention. It's very difficult to build an ad campaign based on a previously failed product with the same name. I mean, would Ford have tried an ad campaign for the New Edsel, or Coke tried introducing New New Coke?
BTW, the most interesting part of this will be whether Microsoft DOES in fact offer an RT version, because if they DON'T, then that signals they've given up on RT.
Nonetheless, even after all of this, I predict that Microsoft's stock price will continue to perform well for at least another year, as it will take that long for the fool "investors" to realize that Microsoft is no longer capable of competing in technology growth sectors, and has become just another big company stuck in a slowly shrinking tech sector, namely enterprise and SMB PC software.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
