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What did the CEO of Microsoft smoke when he ordered production of the Surface RT

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AstroManLuca said:
I remember how much buzz it generated when rumors surfaced (hehe) that the price would be something like $300. Then they were like, no, it costs as much as an iPad and the keyboard is an extra $100.

That's not how you launch a product.
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Microsoft has never understood pricing when it comes to competing in a non dominant position. I used to laugh when people actually believed that the Surface would come out at $300. Not even a chance I say because Microsoft has never had that type of common sense.
 
The next tablet should be called Kamikaze, the next OS Harakiri. Way to go Balmer. He must secretly work for Samsung.
 
Raghu said:
Do you have Outlook now?
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Outlook RT came out with Windows 8.1, so it's out but in "preview" form.

Microsoft was in a tough spot. They wanted to have OEMs created WinRT tablets so they purposefully came into the market at a higher price to give room for OEMs. Now that the OEMs have blown off WinRT, I think the $349 could actually be the new price point for the Surface even when the next version comes out.
 
Staples said:
Microsoft has never understood pricing when it comes to competing in a non dominant position. I used to laugh when people actually believed that the Surface would come out at $300. Not even a chance I say because Microsoft has never had that type of common sense.
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They don't realize unlike Apple nobody treats MS or Windows as a luxury brand.
 
The problem with the Surface RT was always price. Tegra 3 was never a great SoC to begin with. It launched at a similar price point to the iPad, but the iPad was always a better tablet. It also had a more mature app ecosystem

And, like Welsh said, the market was already crowded. I think history has shown there there really isn't room for more than two operating systems. While I think Windows RT is a decent tablet OS, it doesn't really do anything that iOS or Android don't. Sure, there's a desktop mode, but who wants that for a tab? You can just get a laptop instead.
 
I liked RT better than Android. The browser was much better, Flash was faster and i can use windows and have a much better multitask system.

On the other hand the prices of every tablet was so high, it was ridiculous. I hope they will fix all the failures (higher resolution and a lower price point) to push RT.
 
The problem with the Surface always has been the price. If they had released it at this price, with the touch keyboard included, it would have done much better. However, it's pretty clear that Microsoft is walking this fine line between making their own devices attractive and not pissing off their other hardware partners. It's almost like Surface was just intended to be a reference device for other manufacturers...and to some extent, that worked. Samsung's new line of Windows tablets look awesome.

However, if they never intended to sell all THAT many, one wonders why they ordered so many to be built. A curious decision. Either way, I do really like my Surface, I use it all the time, but I also did not pay for it and would not have paid $600 for it.
 
The problem wasn't so much price as compatibility. With the Tegra SoC the RT couldnt run windows apps, it was a pure tablet without much in the way of app support. It looks like windows 8 (which people are trying their damndest to stay away from) without being able to run windows apps. Its fine if all you want to do is run office and IE, but even those are rather slow.

If they had left office included with it, but used an Atom SoC, the "RT" would have been fine. But they wanted to showcase windows on Arm. Oops.
 
ilkhan said:
If they had left office included with it, but used an Atom SoC, the "RT" would have been fine. But they wanted to showcase windows on Arm. Oops.
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Even a year ago, Clovertrail wasn't there, but Tegra 3 was mature. An ARM route was the only route at the time to meet a Windows 8 launch with a fanless and power miser platform, while not outpricing many Windows 8 laptops.

Things could have been different with an x86/AMD64 SoC at a more reasonable price point, thermal properties, and power consumption, driver maturity such as Clovertrail has only recently just realised. Intel rushed out Clovertrail and it showed for nearly the 6 months of the launch products.

You can't have it all and on time. The ARM route for Windows RT will probably die off as its hardware returns fewer advantages to allay the practical and perceptual cost of not supporting x86 software.

That all said.... My family regularly uses and is quite happy sharing a Asus Vivotab RT with keyboard that totalled $299. Portable, light, super-IPS outdoor usable display, Office, multiple user accounts, and a fast, reliable browser. Many other portable computers including an Acer W510, Lenovo x120e, but that Vivotab RT has become he regular go-to device.
 
mmntech said:
The problem with the Surface RT was always price. Tegra 3 was never a great SoC to begin with. It launched at a similar price point to the iPad, but the iPad was always a better tablet. It also had a more mature app ecosystem

And, like Welsh said, the market was already crowded. I think history has shown there there really isn't room for more than two operating systems. While I think Windows RT is a decent tablet OS, it doesn't really do anything that iOS or Android don't. Sure, there's a desktop mode, but who wants that for a tab? You can just get a laptop instead.
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Price was problem #1 (a much lower launch price could've made it more attractive) but windows rt was the other big problem. A deficit of quality apps comparable to iOS or android was and will continue to be a problem.
 
ilkhan said:
The problem wasn't so much price as compatibility. With the Tegra SoC the RT couldnt run windows apps, it was a pure tablet without much in the way of app support. It looks like windows 8 (which people are trying their damndest to stay away from) without being able to run windows apps. Its fine if all you want to do is run office and IE, but even those are rather slow.

If they had left office included with it, but used an Atom SoC, the "RT" would have been fine. But they wanted to showcase windows on Arm. Oops.
Click to expand...

Sure, but as last year's models showed, x86 wasn't there yet. From what I've read, Microsoft was expecting Haswell to be ready last fall and it wasn't - Haswell really changes the landscape of Windows 8 tablets. Tegra really was never up to the task for WinRT, compatibility aside - newer ARM chips would likely do a much better job as well.

Frankly, my Surface does everything I need it to. It's great at email, it DOES have Office, and it has a full-fledged browser that performs well - sure, there's no Facebook app, but facebook.com works great on the Surface so it's not really much of a loss. Even though there is a Twitter app (as well as some solid 3rd party alternatives like Tweetro) I still find myself using the website most of the time.

I have a Kindle Fire HD, an older gen iPad, and a plethora of smartphones, but if it's available I generally pull out my Surface before any of them.
 
People love to reference that iPhone video as evidence of his incompetence, but those people are displaying their own willful ignorance by not actually listening to what he's saying in the video.

"$500 for a phone, fully subsidized?" ~ that is what he's laughing at, and he was absolutely right. The iPhone didn't really take off until it dropped to more reasonable prices with the 3G. He also admits in the video that it may sell well.

It's also utterly irrelevant to this thread, but then again, I wouldn't expect anything but mindless Microsoft bashing from you anyway.
 
sontin said:
I liked RT better than Android. The browser was much better, Flash was faster and i can use windows and have a much better multitask system.

On the other hand the prices of every tablet was so high, it was ridiculous. I hope they will fix all the failures (higher resolution and a lower price point) to push RT.
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I accept that about Windows 8 on x86.

But wasn't RT the limited one? It doesn't run Windows applications. I don't think it has flash. It only has a single browser, and it's IE which always lags behind eventually, even if it's good at every new release.

And with improvements to Intel's Atom and AMD's introduction of Kabini, I see no room for surface RT anymore.

I have an old Windows 7 tablet. Windows 8 breathed nice life into it, the Metro apps run beautifully on it despite its low end hardware.
 
Deeko said:
People love to reference that iPhone video as evidence of his incompetence, but those people are displaying their own willful ignorance by not actually listening to what he's saying in the video.

"$500 for a phone, fully subsidized?" ~ that is what he's laughing at, and he was absolutely right. The iPhone didn't really take off until it dropped to more reasonable prices with the 3G. He also admits in the video that it may sell well.

It's also utterly irrelevant to this thread, but then again, I wouldn't expect anything but mindless Microsoft bashing from you anyway.
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At the end of the day though, Microsoft is at a very poor position compared to where they were before he became CEO. If they played their cards right they could've had the marketshare Android enjoys today.
 
Fox5 said:
I accept that about Windows 8 on x86.

But wasn't RT the limited one? It doesn't run Windows applications. I don't think it has flash. It only has a single browser, and it's IE which always lags behind eventually, even if it's good at every new release.

And with improvements to Intel's Atom and AMD's introduction of Kabini, I see no room for surface RT anymore.

I have an old Windows 7 tablet. Windows 8 breathed nice life into it, the Metro apps run beautifully on it despite its low end hardware.
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Windows RT has fully functional Flash. Also, IE lags behind? IE9, 10, and 11 have all been excellent. I had a problem with IE11 - I thought it was crashing frequently because it was a beta. After getting frustrated with it, I realized it was crashing because I was using GPU drivers that were incompatible.

People still like to insult IE, but it isn't the archaic browser that IE6 was. I've seen reviews of Windows Phone that say ridiculous things like "this browser is so nice and fluid - too bad it's IE." What does that even mean?

Surface RT was priced higher than it should've been, but otherwise it is an excellent and capable device.
 
Deeko said:
It's also utterly irrelevant to this thread, but then again, I wouldn't expect anything but mindless Microsoft bashing from you anyway.
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Don't cry. Does it hurt your feelings when someone says something negative about MS? Or does it hurt your feeling more that I've been right about Microsoft, and you are usually wrong?


Infraction for trolling and personal attack
Blade, you are out of line. Please avoid personal insults in the future.

Moderator PM[/B]
 
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pantsaregood said:
Windows RT has fully functional Flash. Also, IE lags behind? IE9, 10, and 11 have all been excellent. I had a problem with IE11 - I thought it was crashing frequently because it was a beta. After getting frustrated with it, I realized it was crashing because I was using GPU drivers that were incompatible.

People still like to insult IE, but it isn't the archaic browser that IE6 was. I've seen reviews of Windows Phone that say ridiculous things like "this browser is so nice and fluid - too bad it's IE." What does that even mean?

Surface RT was priced higher than it should've been, but otherwise it is an excellent and capable device.
Click to expand...

Browsers advance very quickly. IE has a stair step release. It gets a major release once every 3 years, and then stagnates for 3 years. And frequently that release is tied to a new OS, meaning you have to upgrade your entire computer (for most people) to upgrade the stupid web browser.

Or you could just stick with a reliably and regularly updated browser from the start.
 
Fox5 said:
Browsers advance very quickly. IE has a stair step release. It gets a major release once every 3 years, and then stagnates for 3 years. And frequently that release is tied to a new OS, meaning you have to upgrade your entire computer (for most people) to upgrade the stupid web browser.

Or you could just stick with a reliably and regularly updated browser from the start.
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You're actually probably correct on average, but this is far from representative of Microsoft's recent release history.

IE9 was released March 14, 2011.
IE10 was released October 26, 2012.
IE11 will likely be released in August 2013.

This shows an accelerating release schedule. Compare this to the previous three versions.

IE6 was released August 27, 2001.
IE7 was released October 18, 2007.
IE8 was released March 19, 2009.

The development cycle, prior to IE9, was unacceptably slow. The current plan seems to revolve around a "major" release at least once per year, along with usability/vulnerability patches monthly.
 
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