http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-co ... ue-1169889

Oh dear.

Hardly unexpected.

1.7 million is not a small number but compared to the numbers of iPads sold it is pitiful.

MS sells a "small" amount in a restricted market. When they had from the start had stated they had a modest sale expectation.

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If you've got a modest sales expectation, you don't spend about a hundred million dollars marketing it.

You do if it is a multi billion dollar market. I think that the problem was lack of apps and too late to the market. If it could be loaded with any windows app then it could have had a chance. Lots of people want a smaller lighter way to work. If you could put Office on it and many typical apps then it could have been a valid option.


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I think the perception was 'You want how much extra just to use a keyboard?!' Cos MS didn't do a very good job of selling 'All your files and progs just work', seemingly cos they didn't really get that benefit themselves. Windows 8's rep wouldn't have helped either.

The problem is that some are failing to let go of the keyboard and realise the potential of the tablet. Just allow it to Bluetooth a keyboard if it is that essential.


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It was one of the things that made it stand out, still does. Joe Average probably doesn't know that there are BT keyboards either

That's because on the Surface RT that would have been an outright lie. You could argue one of their mistakes was to have two different devices in the 'brand' which, in user terms, had virtually nothing in common. I would argue that, in fact.

Let's face it the Surface range had one obvious issue - they were really no better than the competition and they were more expensive than the competition. Given that, a 'modest sales expectation' is frankly NSS. The people who think you can actually convince someone to pay £300 more for something that suits their needs less are morons.

That's what I meant by 'seemingly cos they didn't really get that benefit themselves.' They were too busy trying to justify the Pro price so they could price gouge even more.

They really never saw it from the customers perspective. They got the devices for free and so while able to put what they used on it so never appreciated its weaknesses.

The problem is, they probably aren't gouging, people are just so used to netbook pricing and bargain basement tablets that are supported by an advertising and media eco system. The latter is something MS and its partners can't currently offer. There are some ad-sponsored apps in Windows 8, but the ads come mostly for other games from Microsoft / released through MS Studio.

Given the specification of the Pro, for example, it has similar internals to a MacBook Air, but a higher resolution display and a touch screen, yet costs less, then people moan and say it should cost less than an iPad... If that is the case, why does the MacBook cost more than an iPad, when it offers less than a Surface Pro?

There are good reasons that a Lambo costs more than a Dacia Duster, and it isn't all down to the name.

That said, the RT devices were a solution looking for a problem. By the time they were released, Intel had already come up with an Atom chip that was more than competitive with the ARM chips. That made RT in most resects redundant. Going forward, the gap is going to be even bigger, with the next generation Atom chips offering equivalent power consumption to ARM, with a performance improvement over the current generation, which leaves ARM spluttering in the dust. It will be interesting to see how ARM will react.

Just look at Samsung, which is switching to Atom for its new tablets, which also means it is easy to rebrand them as either Android or Windows tablets, thus reducing development costs. There are also a growing number of companies looking at Atom for their smartphones (Motorola and Huwai have both released Intel based smartphones over the last year or so).

1) People don't care about specs.
2) People don't care about a touch screen with Windows.
3) 'Surface' is being marketed as a tablet not an ultrabook and they haven't made enough of a distinction between RT and Pro. So people expect it to cost tablet prices, not ultrabook prices.

Basically, they're advertising the product as something it is not then asking people to pay extra for things they don't want or need and positioned it against competitors that are better integrated with a more coherent message. Amazingly, it's not been a success. Who'd have thought?

I like my Pro. It's a nice PC. But the marketing of it has been a cavalcade of foolishness from start to finish.

The Pro has also only been available outside the USA for about 2 months, and then only in limited numbers in limited markets, so it is hardly surprising that it doesn't sell well.

That said, the Windows 8 tablets are just what I've been waiting for and why I had held off buying an iPad or Android tablet. The price is not so relevant, it is its capabilities that are important to me. But the Pro took too long to get to market, I had already had a Windows 8 tablet for 4 months, before Microsoft decided to actually start selling it over here.