Microsoft rarely deliver on a promise. I knew that wasn’t going to ship immediately.
They can’t even retain a single vision for their core business for more than about 6 months.
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Will Microsoft cancel the Surface?
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Microsoft rarely deliver on a promise. I knew that wasn’t going to ship immediately.
They can’t even retain a single vision for their core business for more than about 6 months.
When going to a tech store, I never see a Surface or any other Microsoft hardware on display, although there are always the whole stands with iPads and Samsung tablets. I think this is one of the reasons people buy them less.
When a friend of mine first showed me a Surface Pro (I had no idea it even existed!), I liked it immediately, but I already had all the equipment: PC desktop, iPad, smartphone, and I couldn't justify any new hardware. It also seems that Surface doesn't fill any gap in my needs. It's a pure want.
Its downsides are that the Surface has no USB-A ports and is non-upgradable and hard to repair (if repairable at all). But I don't think people care about it these days (I do). A bit too pricey, too.
As to the question: I don't think they'll cancel it, as those numbers in the article seem huge, even after the projected decline.
When a friend of mine first showed me a Surface Pro (I had no idea it even existed!), I liked it immediately, but I already had all the equipment: PC desktop, iPad, smartphone, and I couldn't justify any new hardware. It also seems that Surface doesn't fill any gap in my needs. It's a pure want.
Its downsides are that the Surface has no USB-A ports and is non-upgradable and hard to repair (if repairable at all). But I don't think people care about it these days (I do). A bit too pricey, too.
As to the question: I don't think they'll cancel it, as those numbers in the article seem huge, even after the projected decline.
WP8 was a really nice OS, but they just never did anything with it. I don't know about not give up so easily as just put in the bare minimum effort to actually catch it up to where iOS and Android were features wise. Towards the end Nokia were needing to write specific apps and drivers to add hardware features to their phones because MS just CBA to do it themselves. Then WP10 update happened and just broke too much stuff to be viable as a daily driver. It was worse than most iOS betas!
My wife uses her Surface Book 3 for her consulting work and loves the machine. It is her 2nd Surface Book after using an original generation one for a couple of years. The first one was a bit of a disaster in that Microsoft replaced it 9 times (you read that correctly) during the warranty period. But she likes the features so much that she got the SB3 and its operation has been pretty much flawless for her needs. She’s using Windows 10 Pro, and uses the detachable screen as a tablet a great deal. Her SB3 just completed its 3-year extended warranty and she was looking for a replacement. Sadly, no such thing in the current lineup so she’s keeping what she has. Still loves it.
Microsoft has been seeing steeper decline. For what’s worth, BlackBerry was using same argument till it fell off the cliff. Not saying it’s going blackberry way, but the decline outside of Covid work from home bump has been going for a while.
Couldn’t be more right on this! I remember RT was supposed to be the “death knell” for the iPad because it was meant to compete head-on, at least on the enterprise-side of things, with iOS.
Two things here…
A. Their major hardware divisions have been in decline for some time, not least of which Xbox, Surface, and HaloLens. Not sure what or where you are seeing profitability there, especially since the entire HaloLens group was just recently disappeared, but “changes to our hardware portfolio” doesn’t mean profitability but a cash flow problem (burning money vs. money to burn).
On the one hand, I would easily agree that Microsoft hasn’t “failed” so much or as hard at hardware competitiveness in the consumer PC marketplace as Intel has. AMD continues to demonstrate what life “x86” has left in it, especially on performance vs. cost. I wouldn’t say Microsoft is blameless or otherwise not culpable in some way for the slump in the PC market but it certainly hasn’t helped any.
On the other hand, MS’ utter incompetence on the low-to-midrange market baffles me even more than the high-end market: Netbooks somehow lost out to Chromebooks. Xbox losing market share to Nintendo and Sony. Bloatware remains a thing. Installing freemium software on end-users machines (candy crush, anyone?) without their knowledge or consent. Windows licenses still costs money yet their competitors are free (e.g., Linux, macOS, Chrome OS, etc.).
The list just goes on and on and on as to why people would choose any other competitor product, from Chromebook to Mac, Linux to macOS, than a Windows machine, the sales #’s pretty clearly reflect it.
B. Either you didn’t read the article, didn’t understand it, or are trying to put a spin on it.
That’s it right there.
For me, the fact that M$ continues sell devices with 12th gen Intel silicon released in 2021 in
What's wrong with the Xbox? The Xbox One had some early issues, but overall it was a solid console, and the Xbox S/X are highly regarded.
In a twisted sort of way, the only thing worse then selling a 12h gen Intel CPU in 2023 is selling an ARM chip that is slower, has an OS that is less featured and cannot run all winx86 programs.
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Interesting you have had issues with battery - I see the opposite: my iPad Pro burns battery a lot quicker than the Surface. Even putting both to sleep, the Surface can last for months, the iPad.. not.
One would hope that this year we see 14th gen/Meteor Lake, which might have some really good gains
I agree. The Xbox is a good device. I got my kids an X box series X for Christmas and they seem to really like it. They also have switch lites but they seem to play the xbox a lot more.
As for the surface I don’t see it going anywhere. They might slim down the line but I don’t see it going away. They need 2 in 1 device. I don’t really see the ipad as a direct competitor to the surface.
Ok, but how does that pertain to the topic? We're talking about abysmal sales, design and to a lesser extent pricing choices that microsoft has taken in the past.
I feel like Microsoft don’t know what to do with the product like - specivically the tablet. It’s an interesting device, but their premium pricing without being able to offer the value really kills them - as you said, abysmal sales.
I think they tried to copy apple and thought just throwing stuff together and making it look good with a premium price was all that was needed. The Surface Pro is a good idea, the execution is lacking. I also think the Surface Go is a good product but overall they need to rethink their message and target audience.
A shame they dropped it in favour of the Studio Laptop, there's still nothing else on the market that's really comparable to the SB. If I were Microsoft I'd ruthlessly trim the line back to the Surface Pro, Surface Studio (redesigned to use actual desktop parts maybe?) and reintroduce the Surface Book. The surface Laptop is a nice device but ultimately it doesn't do anything any other Laptop doesn't already offer, and it's looking really dated now. The Go products are pretty bad, and the Studio Laptop is a solution looking for a problem, the 360 designs from other OEMs are already better convertibles anyway.
I think they will kill off projects like Surface to focus on AI which is their newfound money machine. More realistically in the short-term the Surface lineup may be slimmed down if it continues to underperform.
I think Microsoft is big enough to focus on multiple things at the same time.
Yes but why would you focus on something that makes little money compared to other departments, hence the next part of the sentence that you cut off. It was just a thought though, as indicated by the sentence after that. Context.
Yes, I cut off the part 'which is their newfound money machine', because I thought it added nothing relevant to the context
. Historically speaking Microsoft always does a lot of projects at the same time (some of them do not make much money and others do).Candidly, when I first read your comment, I thought you were outright kidding because the last line was spinning so hard. So, a few things…
a. I‘m guessing you missed the Seattle Times article hyperlinked in the earlier post. The layoffs and department shrinkages speak for themselves (again, burning money vs. money to burn). BUS 101 aside, if a division nay product line is profitable, maintaining and supporting growth is the logical step; otherwise, well, you get the picture. The fact that MS doesn’t release raw sales numbers (shipped vs. sold) is pretty telling, especially during COVID.
Seriously, the pandemic (esp. by 2021!) was a true sellers market for all manufacturers but they missed the boat there, too.
b. Are you really going to compare Intel to Silicon on performance and battery life? 👀
c. So, issues running Windows, OS and apps, on an is a bygone argument that holds no basis in fact with M-series. A causal search will find you example after example of Windows (and/or apps) on ARM. Anecdotally, I run Crossover for my app and some gaming needs on M1 and GForce Now (cloud) for my AAA title gaming needs.
d. Xbox, both current and last generation, remains the single lowest-selling console/brand on the market, and it’s spurning layoffs. —That’s a cold reality but a necessary one given their history with hardware.
The Xbox One (last gen) sold less than half of PlayStation 4, a statistic so crushing and embarrassing to Microsoft it took seven years to finally admit.
Xbox 360 was a high point to be sure but left scarred by continual hardware and component failures (e.g., RRoD, E71, multiple cardboard coffins, overheating, etc.).
They’re still trying to offload all the 12th Gen stock in their own warehouse(s) not least of which what’s collecting dust on pallets in their resellers and distributors warehouses. Plus, If they launch a new SKU while there’s still a sizable amount of product in the channel, it creates even bigger problems down the line not just for MS but also their distribution partners and resellers.
Plus, given how long-in-the-tooth the technology is in their current generation of Surface with an already admitted failed launch over the last quarter, there’s little to the imagination here about discussions being held about how and when to liquidate stock-on-hand. Conjectural to all this, an admitted failed launch was pretty telling, leading me to believe they’re not sure about the sales forecast given the last generation shortfalls.
That was pretty close to my assessment, as well. They’re going to steer toward their strengths (e.g., software, cloud, etc.), it makes sense from a profitability standpoint but frankly I don‘t see them keeping Surface beyond one more generation, at most.
Yes, I cut off the part 'which is their newfound money machine', because I thought it added nothing relevant to the context
The AI launch of last week is of course brand new so it’s too soon to draw any conclusions, but I could see it becoming transformative to the company. And MS is already mostly software anyway.
Surface is more of an example of how to use their software features rather than a bid to become the greatest hardware company. I could see it slimming down a bit at least.
I have read your link, but I also saw this link:
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/45... the last 12 months,S sold 9.32 million units.
I am not sure which one is true.
Also Microsoft is laying off 10,000 people in general (including XBox, Hololens and other departments), but it is not a given that this is directly related to XBox, or just spread out over the whole company.
I don't say I disagree with your assesment, but I don't know if it is that cut and dry.
Both Sony and MS sell their consoles at a loss (or near loss) and make up their money via software and services
Microsoft reveals how much money Game Pass actually makes
Phil Spencer Says Xbox Game Pass Is Profitable, New Sign-Ups Slowing Down On Console
The first part is true yet it fails to explain laggard sales numbers. The latter quote supports my earlier post(s) and articles so I'm unsure what you were trying to argue here.
Paraphrasing: They're making some "remains to be seen" profit on consoles already sold yet they continue to sell less and less consoles than any other company.
Channel sales vs. direct sales. Keep in mind these are estimates because MS doesn't release their raw sales numbers.
There was some circling on Xbox earlier on the discussion thread, that's why the focus started careening (hard) into Xbox in particular but nonetheless you are correct it is across multiple departments. Be that as it may, the destabilizing effects of the layoffs on Xbox alone are both palpable and sobering.
On other hardware, there were approximately 1,500 people (ca. Jan 2022) on the HaloLens team that was straight up axed altogether, not to mention all virtual/mixed reality teams that fell behind as well. Ongoing misconduct allegations didn't help, either.
Given that they haven't dropped the Duo 3 (after the Duo 2 flopped), I doubt it's going to see the light of day (esp. post-layoffs). Looks like the review units are in "flop" status already and it hasn't been released to market yet.
