Early Surface Sales Pitiful 251
Nerval's Lobster writes "Microsoft has earned $853 million from sales of its Surface tablets, according to the company's annual Form 10-K filed with the SEC. That's a bit of a disaster, to put it bluntly. Earlier estimates put Surface sales at roughly 1.5 million units; the $853 million figure reinforces that projection. By comparison, Apple sold 14.6 million iPads in its last quarter alone. Adding insult to injury, Microsoft spent quite a bit producing and marketing Surface. The Windows division's 'cost of revenue increased $1.8 billion, reflecting a $1.6 billion increase in product costs associated with Surface and Windows 8, including a charge for Surface RT inventory adjustments of approximately $900 million,' read the Form 10-K. 'Sales and marketing expenses increased $1.0 billion or 34 percent, reflecting an $898 million increase in advertising costs associated primarily with Windows 8 and Surface.' Overall, Microsoft's Windows division earned $19.2 billion in its fiscal 2013."
Microsoft... (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft... There's a name you don't hear every day... They're still around?
The Surface is Wonderful! (Score:5, Funny)
The Surface is a wonderful device that I love to use. My seventeen kids all fight over the privilege to use it and they all want to replace their iPads with a Surface. They're just flying off the shelves, and the local stores can't keep them in stock. I have to drive 200 miles to buy more. At work our productivity increased 1,022% when we replaced all of our ipad and android tablets with the Surface. It's so cute and convenient, I just can't keep my hands off of it.
There, did it for you. Cut and paste as necessary.
One mans treasure is another mans' trash (Score:3, Funny)
Jeff Atwood (of CodingHorror, StackOverflow fame) praised the Surface RT:
I can't even remember the last time I was this excited about a computer. [codinghorror.com]
Re:Microsoft went in the wrong direction (Score:5, Funny)
The problem with the Surface RT was that it was best described by what it couldn't do.
"It's like iPad, but it doesn't run apps from the Apple store." "It's like a Windows PC, but it doesn't run all Windows software." "It's like a laptop, but you can't type on it in your lap.
Microsoft completely fucked up the marketing. If Surface RT came out three years ago, it would have dominated, but Apple and Android have already shaped user expectations. They created a device that runs a browser and MS Office...enough to cover 99% of computing use...and it has twice the battery life, half the weight, and a third of the cost of an comparable ultraportable laptop. It should have been a killer piece of gear, and the engineers probably thought they created something really special. Too bad Microsoft thought it would just sell itself in market where existing tablets had already gone the content-comsumption only route.
I avoided the Surface because I'm not coordinated enough to do the dance moves they show on the TV commercials.
Re:Marketing expenses (Score:4, Funny)
I hate it when the dollars get loose