I generally argue with Thurrott but on the Surface 2, I agree

[Jazmac]

"What Microsoft should be doing is following the PC model, not the Apple model. That means choice, not lack of choice, and no offense to Microsoft, but it can't dictate what people want in the way that Apple can. It shouldn?t even try. And all it has to do is look to Nokia to see how that close partner dramatically expanded its own hardware options to great effect. This is the model that works in the commoditized part of the market. It is the only model that will work on the PC side.

Basically, I see an evolved lineup of hardware coming from Microsoft this fall and nothing to get all that excited about. And that worries me: At a time that Microsoft should be leading, the firm is simply following Apple into a market years later.

And it appears to be doing that again with Surface 2. This isn't a recipe for success, it's a recipe for irrelevance. It's what doomed the Zune, which was also excellent and well-made but a day late and a dollar short. It will doom Surface 2 as well."

http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devices/thinking-about-surface-2

 

[luiislp]

I just got a surface rt for 200 bucks and Im in love it. The battery life is really good and keep up with heavy use. I also love having MS Office for free ; Im a college student and it help me take notes while Im reading my digital textbook in the surface. And the best part of having a surface its that I dont need to carry my tablet and my macbook anymore, my surface fits all my need and I would recommend it to anyone in school.

 

[FinancialP]

I just got a surface rt for 200 bucks and Im in love it. The battery life is really good and keep up with heavy use. I also love having MS Office for free ; Im a college student and it help me take notes while Im reading my digital textbook in the surface. And the best part of having a surface its that I dont need to carry my tablet and my macbook anymore, my surface fits all my need and I would recommend it to anyone in school.

If they would've launched at $200. We all would love it.

 

[Onager1286]

I hope so much that MS prices the Surface 2 really aggressively. It pisses me off that the Surface brand has already been tainted so badly... While it has its share of faults, its a good product that deserves to be used and appreciated. I'd rather see MS sell it at a loss and make it up elsewhere than to see the entire Surface brand, and by extension Microsoft, turn into a complete joke.

 

[stephen_az]

I hope so much that MS prices the Surface 2 really aggressively. It pisses me off that the Surface brand has already been tainted so badly... While it has its share of faults, its a good product that deserves to be used and appreciated. I'd rather see MS sell it at a loss and make it up elsewhere than to see the entire Surface brand, and by extension Microsoft, turn into a complete joke.

....so you would rather see them sell a product at a loss? Wow, how generous and magnanimous of you. Microsoft does not sell its products at a loss and I am glad they do not. Has anyone noticed who is the industry leader in gaming? It may have taken longer to get there but it allows for innovation and profit, which then allows for more innovation and more profit. Product dumping as in Amazon and Google is still illegal under US anti-trust laws and it would be nice if they were enforced. If you cannot afford to buy a product then wait until you can....

 

[ag1986]

....so you would rather see them sell a product at a loss? Wow, how generous and magnanimous of you. Microsoft does not sell its products at a loss and I am glad they do not. Has anyone noticed who is the industry leader in gaming? It may have taken longer to get there but it allows for innovation and profit, which then allows for more innovation and more profit. Product dumping as in Amazon and Google is still illegal under US anti-trust laws and it would be nice if they were enforced. If you cannot afford to buy a product then wait until you can....

It's not 'product dumping', it's called a loss leader. AFAIK the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire tablets are sold at a breakeven cost, not a loss, and they expect to make up the price with app and media sales (and other products as well, for Amazon). Kinda like how they sell you inkjet printers for throwaway prices and kill you on the cartridges. Perfectly legal, actually.

 

[stephen_az]

"What Microsoft should be doing is following the PC model, not the Apple model. That means choice, not lack of choice, and no offense to Microsoft, but it can't dictate what people want in the way that Apple can. It shouldn’t even try. And all it has to do is look to Nokia to see how that close partner dramatically expanded its own hardware options to great effect. This is the model that works in the commoditized part of the market. It is the only model that will work on the PC side.

Basically, I see an evolved lineup of hardware coming from Microsoft this fall and nothing to get all that excited about. And that worries me: At a time that Microsoft should be leading, the firm is simply following Apple into a market years later.

And it appears to be doing that again with Surface 2. This isn't a recipe for success, it's a recipe for irrelevance. It's what doomed the Zune, which was also excellent and well-made but a day late and a dollar short. It will doom Surface 2 as well."

http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devices/thinking-about-surface-2

Thurrott likes to see his name in print but it is too bad he, as often as not, hasn't a clue. I believe he is also still sulking over the fact they no longer give him inside information and have publicly slapped him down a couple times. Microsoft is already the industry leader, not the follower, in touch and mobile computing. In fact, actual experts have noted that as one of the current struggles. They are ahead of the curve in a market where actually following Apple would be the cheap an easy way to short term gain. Microsoft was forward thinking enough to recognize that the PC model is not the future; the Apple model will not work in the long run; and the Google/Amazon approach will eventually bring down an unprofitable Amazon and land Google in front of the Justice Department. They have the money to move in a different direction and are willing to use money to redefine the game over the long haul. Actually, all of this is irrelevant anyway since if the still stroked his raging ego he would love everything they do....

 

[ag1986]

To elaborate, MS is still thinking like they always did, in terms of number of units sold. This is not the game any more. They fail to factor in the lifetime value of a user, and that's something that their competitors, especially Amazon, do very well. E.g. I will buy something from Amazon even if it's available elsewhere for ~$5-$50 less just because I know I'm guaranteed a good customer experience.

 

[ag1986]

Microsoft is already the industry leader, not the follower, in touch and mobile computing.

Say what? WP share ~5%, Surface share, negligible/trivial. How do you arrive at this conclusion?

P.S. and Win8 - no stats, but the laptop market in general is falling so that's hardly a ray of sunshine...

 

[Jazmac]

Say what? WP share ~5%, Surface share, negligible/trivial. How do you arrive at this conclusion?

P.S. and Win8 - no stats, but the laptop market in general is falling so that's hardly a ray of sunshine...

If you think Microsoft is just Windows phones and Surface, I would agree with you.

 

[martinmc78]

If you think Microsoft is just Windows phones and Surface, I would agree with you.

If you take sales figures for the Surface then yes. But if you take the Surface for a piece of hardware its in front of anything apple have churned out in the various iterations of ipad and I cant think of a single android running device that comes close to it.

 

[Onager1286]

....so you would rather see them sell a product at a loss? Wow, how generous and magnanimous of you. Microsoft does not sell its products at a loss and I am glad they do not. Has anyone noticed who is the industry leader in gaming? It may have taken longer to get there but it allows for innovation and profit, which then allows for more innovation and more profit. Product dumping as in Amazon and Google is still illegal under US anti-trust laws and it would be nice if they were enforced. If you cannot afford to buy a product then wait until you can....

So you would rather see them sell in pitiful numbers, continue to tarnish the brand, and consequently let people believe that they're better off with an iPad? This isn't about my personal wishes for a dirt cheap surface so I can snap it up (I already bought an RT at full price by the way), its about the real problem that the general population doesn't find the Surface RT worth the $499 Microsoft was asking. So they can be stubborn and insist it is worth that, or they can get their foot in the door and make it easy for people to buy over the incumbent iPad.

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

What they really need to do is sell the next surface at a reasonable price. Selling the first one at 499 was asking too much. The thing apple has taught people is that you can't charge Apple's price if it isn't apple or if its not better. I love my surface and in many ways its better than the iPad but the iPad is overall a better device. Better screen, better battery life, more apps, the point I'm trying to make is if its not better in every way, they can't charge the same price. Even Samsung knows they can't sell the galaxy tab at the same price either, which is why their galaxy tab 3 10.1 is 399$ and not 499$. The surface is selling at my work now that its 350$ so the next surface 10" should be at most 399$. Also, i think asking 120$ for the keyboards is a little high.

 

[penetronn]

I think with the Nokia acquisition, the surface brand may be in jeopardy. Probably not the worst thing though because the stink of the past year will be hard to rid itself of.

 

[anon(5345625)]

Are you suggesting that the Xbox is popular because Microsoft refused to sell it at a loss? Because it would only take a single Google search and about 3 seconds to show you that's not how the gaming industry played out.

 

[bilzkh]

....so you would rather see them sell a product at a loss? Wow, how generous and magnanimous of you. Microsoft does not sell its products at a loss and I am glad they do not. Has anyone noticed who is the industry leader in gaming? It may have taken longer to get there but it allows for innovation and profit, which then allows for more innovation and more profit. Product dumping as in Amazon and Google is still illegal under US anti-trust laws and it would be nice if they were enforced. If you cannot afford to buy a product then wait until you can....

That depends. If Microsoft sold hardware at a loss but recuperated on MS-hardware users subscribing to Office and Xbox Music, as well as using Skype, Bing, Outlook and SkyDrive (read: ads) on a constant basis, then yes, sell at a loss. Let's see, Microsoft takes a $100 hit on Surface, but could gain at least $100/year in Surface users subscribing and using Microsoft services

 

[SnailUK]

Let's see, Microsoft takes a $100 hit on Surface, but could gain at least $100/year in Surface users subscribing and using Microsoft services

But then it becomes a nightmare when the device has reached critical mass. You can't raise the price, and if you are making a loss, how do you persuade other OEM's to get on board?

The whole point of the device was to show OEM's how to build a tablet, and they did a good job of it. What they did wrong was marketing, plain and simple.It should have been "Windows Tablet" or something, not this confusing RT rubbish. Show all the things it can do, that an ipad can't. etc.

Its such a shame that everything lives and dies by the app count, and even now, Windows RT/Phone/8 just aren't getting the same app attention as iOS/Android.

 

[Onager1286]

But then it becomes a nightmare when the device has reached critical mass. You can't raise the price, and if you are making a loss, how do you persuade other OEM's to get on board?

The whole point of the device was to show OEM's how to build a tablet, and they did a good job of it. What they did wrong was marketing, plain and simple.It should have been "Windows Tablet" or something, not this confusing RT rubbish. Show all the things it can do, that an ipad can't. etc.

Its such a shame that everything lives and dies by the app count, and even now, Windows RT/Phone/8 just aren't getting the same app attention as iOS/Android.

I agree that it's a messy situation, and it sucks that by pricing the Surface lower than they'd like, they kind of dig themselves into a hole. But the alternative is for Surface to sell very poorly, and what's worse, to be perceived as an absolute joke that the press and uninformed public will continue to ridicule.

To be honest, even as a person who likes MS and favors their products, I feel my Surface RT was overpriced. $499 for tablet with decent but not great performance, decent but not great resolution, a very 1.0 set of first-party apps (Mail, Calendar, People, etc), a fairly barren app store, and then they want another $120 for a keyboard that's a huge part of what defines the Surface in the first place? That kind of sucks. Again, I like MS products, but the first-gen Surface was just not competitive - I only bought it because the time was right for me and there was no better alternative at that time.

I'd like to see them price the Surface 2 at no more than the current $350. This is especially important considering the expected presence of a Surface Mini, which I would hope competes more with the new Nexus 7 on price than with the iPad Mini ($250 sounds about right to me). They just really need to be aggressive when they're the clear laggards in this space.

 

[rodan01]

The Intel CPUs are more expensive than ARM, If OEMs are abandoning RT Microsoft has the exclusive responsibility of saving the platform expanding the adoption in the low end. They could use the Lumia brand for that, sell cheap tablets with a lower construction quality. Surface should be a premium device with good attributes for the enterprise market.
Without a sub $200 tablet in 2014 Microsoft is done.

 

[JKing106]

What killed the Zune was Microsoft never understood what sold the iPod Touch as that it was a pocket computer, as well as a media player. That means apps. Microsoft never opened the Zune HD up for 3rd party developers, and it took them 3 years to create an email and note taking app for it. Then they pulled the plug a month later.