this is still true with the current stock price?

yes, apple updates are cheaper, OTH they are more frequent, in the timeframe 2009-2012 you pay for leopard, snow leopard, lion and mountain lion, $90 or so, so yes, apple is still the king of expensive shit.

well, there is the original source

"We start modestly as space is available on our sites selling online and in some stores in the United States Microsoft. But the reception, including the press, is phenomenal. This product is one of the best PC and one of the best tablets combined in one machine. Soon, we will present in more countries, more stores. It is here that figure will talk sense."
(google translate)

as i stated before, ballmer never said that sales were modest, he said that surface had a modest distribution, i.e. only launching in a few markets.

well, your link is wrong, Ballmer Never said that SALES were modest, the quote is a " widely distributed mistranslation ".

how do you exactly know that for example Nokia has to pay less than 2.25%, or if they have a lower rate with cross-licensing?, i don't find 2.25% unreasonable at all for the tech required to make an compliant mobile phone,patent licensing deals in the phone industry have been worth up to 5% of the price of the device involved.

yes i reread it and he ran the test and failed miserably until two months ago, after submission it failed when he ran it in a slow machine something he never did before. and is stated as a requirement to pass the tests.

suspend correctly is that in a machine with low memory, slow cpu the application suspends in less than 2 seconds. at least to pass the test.

he should run the Windows App Certification Kit tests where he can test the app before submission, and there are clear explanations of each and every one of the issues.

For example:
- direct3d: "Ensure that the app correctly supports the minimum Direct3D feature level you chose. If that feature level is higher than feature level 9_1, then your app must still run correctly at feature level 9_1. See Developing for different Direct3D feature levels (DirectX and C++) for more details".
- Crashes: "We expect apps to be fully functional without the use of Windows compatibility modes, AppHelp messages, or compatibility fixes."
- Performance: Make sure that your app suspends correctly.

The website linked in the app and listing page was not finished. i think is clear of its own, your webpage is clearly not finished.

Thankfully everyone can have the tool and run it until the tests are ok, then submit it, any programmer who refuses to read the fucking manual deserves to get out of the store.

Testing is a big subject, my take was to write a full automated test, one that puts the database in a zero state and do as many business scenarios it can, simulate the pass of time, simulate external inputs in the most realistic fashion so you don't have any surprise in the deployment.

The Test Team can use the tools developed to speed up their job(put the system in X state can be made by your automated test framework). they test manually all the system too, specially the UI and report bugs,

Designing the system so you can easily test and replicate states, developing the tools and putting it all together with the team was a task i found stimulating.