Microsoft Surface sales numbers revealed as SHOCKINGLY HIDEOUS Microsoft's shares took a beating following its gloomy fiscal 2013 earnings report earlier this month, in which it wrote down nearly a billion dollars on its unloved Surface RT fondleslabs. But the software giant isn't out of the woods yet, because new details have emerged that have the full Surface picture looking even worse …
That glitzy Surface commercial with the ultra-cool young techies tapping and folding their way through a complicated semi-dance routine is the worst incentive to purchase such a product I have ever seen in my life. It makes the product look intimidating (who is that cool, that coordinated or that savvy?), and it says absolutely nothing at all about what ownership of the product might DO for someone, let alone how the product might be better than the competition. Anyone involved in conceiving, filming or approving this horror should be sent as far away from Redmond as is humanly possible. Maybe even required to pay Microsoft the write-down back, plus interest. It's that bad.
I purchased a Surface Pro for myself however my fiancé absconded with it almost immediately. It must be said that aside from a few games she uses it generally as a laptop foregoing her 24" (give or take) HP Touchscreen. The RT was a huge mistake but the Pro is the most awesome ultra-light laptop I've ever worked with.
I knew from the beginning the Surface RT would be an abysmal failure. Its lack of support for Windows applications alone guaranteed that
No you didn't. An iPad has no support for Windows applications, and they sell like warm things of a comestible nature.
The reason the surface RT failed is that it was far too expensive for what it was ... and that what it was was crippled from the outset. Had Microsoft offered it at a subsidized price to get initial momentum, and had they managed not to cripple it quite so badly (include outlook for EMail and allow the Office suite to be used for business) it might have sold respectably. Once they'd got the product range accepted they could then have started selling V2.0 at a profit.
With SecureBoot effectively stopping people from buying a Surface RT and using Android on it MS had no reason not to offer this kind of introductory pricing ... apart from incurable arrogance, of course.
"Had Microsoft offered it at a subsidized price to get initial momentum, and had they managed not to cripple it quite so badly (include outlook for EMail and allow the Office suite to be used for business) it might have sold respectably."
Note we have no evidence of sales in this article, the flaming from The Reg is about their sales revenue (minus advertising revenue, because it's another anti-MS 101 method of handpicking stats to prove a point).
If they'd reduced the price, even if they had much better sales that for any other company would be regarded a success, the Reg would be bean counting and saying the reduced revenue meant it was a failure. If MS had even subsidised it, the Reg would be saying how much a failure was, because it made them a loss.
Indeed there's a thought - how much profit does Google get from the Nexus 7? Or will they get with Chromecast? See, comparing companies purely on revenue and profit makes no sense, especially for consumers. The fact that the Nexus 7 and Chromecast are low cost is a good thing, and something that is rightfully praised. Only an idiot would write an article ridiculing Google's strategy that meant their revenue was lower and they would make no profit from the device sales.
I wonder if they will replace the RT with the new Intel "Atom" tablet processors. I mean, just one year ago it seemed that ARM was the only realistic way and going with Atom would risk crippling the device despite the advantage of compatibility. But now we've got an increasing number of Intel Android devices, with Samsung even choosing it for their mainstream 10" tablet, even though from a compatibility point of view, it's slightly worse than ARM for Android.
Atom-based Windows tablets exist, but they're not as well known about as the Surface, and more expensive (perhaps because of the higher Windows licence fee?) Bring out a Surface RT successor based on Intel with a cheap version of Windows (similar to Windows 7 starter), and it'll do a lot better. I'd gladly snap one up to replace my netbook (for which no obvious upgrade currently exists, and I can't be the only one who wants a "real" OS for a computer be in Windows or Linux, with keyboard as standard, even if it's also a tablet).
The Pro is indeed a lot better, though the Intel Core tablets/hybrids were hampered by the poorer battery life. I might get a Windows hybrid, but I'm waiting to see what Haswell based devices appear - MS really need to updade the Pro to Haswell ASAP.
Once Microsoft marketing department took over Surface RT, it's crippled to be quite useless. No high resolution screen: checked. No GPS: checked. No Microsoft Office Outlook: checked. Cannot join Windows domain: checked. High price: checked. Windows inherent space hogging features & updates: checked. Little available software for RT: checked. Multiple store managers denial of poor product: checked... the list are endless.
I know I'm probably going to get flamed for saying this but in my opinion the Surface RT is the most useful tablet I've ever had. People knock it all the time thx to MSFTs bad marketing job but after people see me using it day to day i usually get asked what it is and then want to know more after being impressed.
cons: no 3G, no GPS, custom fiddly charger plug.
pros: battery life way better than any Intel based device by a long way (2 day laptop anyone), kick stand and folding keyboard screen cover, Full size USB port on a tablet is extremely useful, as is hdmi. Office 2013 so there are no doc format issues when working with others. I can do actual ppt presentations anywhere even on a projector with no hassle or laptop.
i hardly carry my Macbook around now as I've got highly portable laptop replacement and tablet in one now. Sure i cant install normal windows apps, but you cant on an iPad either, and i don't want to as most aren't designed for a 10" touch screen anyway... You tried citrix on an iPad.
you should look at and use the surface RT for what it is and not look at it for what it isn't, otherwise Android tabs and iPads would have the same faults.
Yes, because I'm totally going to splash out £279 (£133 for schools natch - but not students or teachers), + £120 for the better keyboard before slagging it off in El Reg's hallowed pages.
Actually, at this point, I'm not sure I'd even buy it at fire sale prices - there's a stink of desperation about it.
Would love a Surface Pro tho'.
..shame about the OS. We had a Surface Pro on test a few months back and it was the most sturdy and robust bit of kit I've fondled in quite some time. Some of the field staff find tablets very useful for when meeting with customers/audit etc so were issued with iPads by the marketing department (without consulting tech support, natch). Now the field guys are whingeing because they have to carry an iPad around along with their laptop.
Surface Pro would have been perfect for them had it had a better battery and been at least £100 cheaper. If Redmond had any sense they would have sold both the RT and Pro at cost to get the market interested in Windows 8 and the touch experience.
As an aside I was in John Lewis the other day and people seemed to really enjoy poking at the Win 8 tablets. Normally there is a gaggle of folks surrounding the iDevices, but on this particular day there was none.
But note it's the marketing department that should be blamed (either for poor adverts, for poor value for money in how they advertised), or perhaps whoever chose to spend that much - and not the tech itself.
As I say in another post, there must be an order of magnitude more marketing for Apple than MS. If they're getting it without spending 10 times amount, then the question is why they're getting it cheaper.
The iPad was not a risk for early adopters. If it had flopped, the adopters would have still had an oversized iPod touch and a range of software to run, just not making good use of the extra screen area.
(The iPhone similarly was no risk - originally it was a music player and phone in one, the smartphone ability came later - the originals couldn't even multitask).
RT is a huge risk. If it flops, (looking highly likely), what use is it? No new apps. And given Microsoft's history with non x86 operating systems being dropped like hot potatoes and not having any compatibility with their replacements, being locked to an App store is a kiss of death.
Also there is the perception of non techies. They think of a computer, a laptop, a PC, Windows, Microsoft office, word and excel, as pretty much one thing. They think of Macs as expensive alternatives.
They think of tablets as cheap alternatives to do most of what they want to do on a PC, but with less hassle, (antivirus, system updates, system maintenance, software installation etc.) And they just fire up the old PC when they *really* need to do something with it.
What Microsoft have missed is the perception that tablets are an alternative to Windows. They successfully managed to prevent this happening with netbooks. (But because the form factor is different, they can't do the same again.)
A bit like Ton Hank's character in Big, they have lost track of their target market.
They are producing a class of item that would appeal to techies, but with a system that is obviously aimed at non-techies and a price that is aimed at iPad buyers.
A typical reaction the the Surface RT on here is 'I'd love one, if I could install my own OS'. Another typical reaction is 'I'd love one if I could install my own software'. Few here are happy with the App store lock down.
Non techies are quite happy with that limitation. But the history of windows puts them off. (ironically the core system of RT is probably pretty good). Why would they choose one instead of an iPad when the price is close? And those with an Android phone already know how to use the low priced alternative.
RT really is a non starter. If it ran WP8 apps it would have a chance (at least to survive as a niche product).
WP8 is not in such a bad way as RT, it will probably remain in third place for a while, until BlackBerry recovers (if Nokia managed to salvage half the Symbian market, surely BlackBerry can salvage a fair chunk of what they had.) Phones are a different enough product that the Windows smell won't be such a taint. (Though more astute potential buyer will ask themselves if the phone will still be supported in a year.)
I think Nokia has managed to retain/regain the non power user part of their users. (especially now replacing a high end Symbian phone doesn't involve a huge step back in hardware.) The power users have all gone to Samsung. Sadly for Nokia their smartphone user base had a much higher power-user proportion than the general population, hence their belly flop.
I think WP can be regarded as a success for Microsoft, in that it removed a competing OS that paid no royalties and took a chunk of it, while the bulk went to an OS that pays royalties. For Nokia of course, it is a somewhat different story. (Perhaps they would have been better off making wellies)
I think they do. For example, when MS wrote down $900m on Surface, that was their total remaining investment. Any further surfaces sold are pure profit. This articles seems to lead us to believe that they are gone and that $843m is all the sales they'll ever make. Disingenuous, El Reg. And you know it.
If it is true, the only sensible thing to do is to price the remaining stock so low that they are giving it away. Much less than £100, basically.
They will then have an audience who might actually attract developers who might actually attract more audience and which might actually lead to more being made. At the moment, as someone's said, you're being asked to buy into a doomed platform that will be useless within a year or two. This is not an attractive proposition.
It would have been nice for Intel and AMD to have a new rival on the block, especially a British one. However using Windows 8 on my desktop put me right off the whole thing, tablets included. If the RT was cheap to start with, it may have had an impact, but it's too late now, the price cuts looks like a stock offload, it IS a stock offload.
Just recovering from the extremely painful experience of installing an overpriced, manualless, you-pay-for-the-download, DVD-less, language-locked, "Office Home" on this here MacBook that forces you to go to their badly designed, impossible-to-navigate webpage and register for an "account" that you don't want, need nor trust.
BURN, MICROSOFT!
BURN.
BURN.......
twice? They thought twice, and thrice...and then thrice plus twice... Maybe, they should have thought about it - just once. Think rather than "Hey, WE CAN DO THIS, and if you say we can't.. well, you're fired!"
I kind of feel sorry for those companies, who feel that, because what they are, or what they perceive other people perceive them to be, they "must" do this or that, regardless of everything.
I was tempted for a second to get a Surface RT, thinking it would be a smart move to buy it cheap and then wait for the rumoured Windows Phone 8 version of the tablet OS to ship, which would vastly improve the device.
Then I remembered that it's Microsoft we're talking about here and there's bugger-all chance of them supporting their loyal early-adopter Surface RT customers with a new OS.
I went to the Royal Society's summer thing this year and saw some tablets at a stand that I didn't recognise. They turned out to be MS Surfaces. Wow I thought, so that's who's bought them, maybe they got an educational discount. Nope, it turned out the project was sponsored by MS.
Microsoft's problem with Surface is not related to the hardware, marketing or even the price; well, at least, not after the RT discount.
It's problem stems from the fact that it went with 3 architectures, around the time when Surface was being developed.
Rather than extending Windows Phone 8 to cover tablets as well as mobile phones, or redeveloping it to 'cope' with the requirements of a tablet product, and thus maintaining binary compatibility and sharing the ARM architecture between the two, Microsoft decided to go for a THIRD architecture - that's Windows RT.
So devs have 3 architectures to contend with, when they develop their apps; write for normal Windows 8, write for Windows Phone 8 and port/rewrite for Windows RT.
Why did Microsoft do that?! That's the question they should be asking themselves, because if they had combined WP8 and WinRT into the same architecture and binary, then they'd have had a much larger apps base.
The fact that Windows RT (and thus, Surface tablets) is not compatible with either Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8, puts it in no-man's land, rather than taking advantage of the complete portfolio of already-developed apps for the other two platforms.
Actually I believe that Windows 8 x86 and RT are compatible, as when writing the new-style apps, they work on both. So they've done it a different way - rather than making RT the same as Windows Phone, they've got unified development between x86 and RT. Given the common criticism of tablets just being oversized phones, this doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
"Got that? Microsoft spent more in a single year advertising the Windows 8 and Surface launches than it took in from Surface sales that same year."
But this is comparing the advertising for two things to the sales from one thing.
Who cares about how much money companies make anyway - if a company makes loads of profit, that's not good for me, the consumer. How do they do on sales? (Windows 8 passed 100 million a while back - seems like a success to me.)
MS spend a lot of advertising? Well, I'm more bothered that I have to endure endless mentions of Apple, whether it's the product placement in virtually every TV show, or now in most adverts. Go out to do some shopping, and itunes and app store gift card vouchers face you in every store aisle. It goes on and on - take a count of how many times you see an Apple ad per day, and it vastly outdoes any other company.
"Apple sold 57 million iPads in the same period"
Not that we care about fisher price pads, but that's still way less than even just Windows 8 PCs - so much for the death of the PC.
I love Android, but how well were individual Android tablets selling before the Kindle Fire or Nexus 7? Indeed, how well are many of them selling now?
Let's not forget how "one million in 76 days" was hailed as a runaway success for a certain Apple product, despite Symbian selling vastly more. And that was preceded by 6 months of wall-to-wall hype and advertising.
It also strikes me as entirely normal that new products get lots of advertising, whilst established well selling products get less advertising, so comparing the budgets as if they should always match doesn't make much sense.
Back in March, I wrote this on a Reg article about Pro cannibalising RT sales. Can I say 'told you so' now? The only change I'd like to make to this comment is that I don't think the price slash is going to do anything for sales of RT
March comment;
PlayBook anyone?
Competent, trusted (arf), maker of things produces a technically capable and likeable device which has an ecosystem that makes the genetic pool of Hull look diverse. It keeps the price high, in the belief that people will buy it simply because they already have other products made by it.
Despite said device selling like ice cubes at the North pole, maker of things resolutely refuses to accept that said device is, in fact, irrelevant/overpriced/useless/lacking cellular connectivity. "Look at the funky adverts! Don't you want the shiny? Our shiny is so much better than the other shiny because... because... well, because we made it!"
After a while, maker of things slashes the price, which although stimulates a blip in volume of device, just ensures everyone's granny has a cheap device for listening to The Archers that doesn't matter if it absent-mindedly ends up in the dishwasher, or microwave. The ecosystem remains an exercise in uselessness.
Finally, seeing the metaphorical ageing family labrador that keeps pooing on the corporate sofa for what it is, the device is quietly taken out the back and put out its misery. No mention is ever made of it again in polite company... especially not when they're sat on the corporate sofa.
That said, when the price is slashed to two shillings sixpence, I'd definitely be getting a PlayBook, sorry, Surface; my mum put her last one in the dishwasher.
To be honest, I know many friends and techy colleagues that are quite happy to convert MS Word into PDF and iTunes board them onto their iPad for reference library stuff.
To edit, they use a laptop. The age of a single device to do all is not with us yet (or it could be a dream?).
Taxi for Ballmer - one can only hope. Oh wait a minute, stay there Stevie boy your making a right mess.
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