Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

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Cynique,
User Rank: Apprentice
8/10/2013 | 4:41:02 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

MIcrosoft has enjoyed and benefited well from a 30+ year hegemony. They've morphed (as Google is presently doing) from an idealistic business trying to make a change for the better into a greedy capitalistic monster.

I don't mind seeing MS decline as there are a dozen idealistic and REALLY creative young companies ready to fill the void. It's time.

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AlfieJr,
User Rank: Apprentice
8/10/2013 | 5:29:48 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

boy ME, you must love fantasy football too.

Surface RT is dead as a dodo. simply because no one needs it - at all. if you want a cheap commodity tablet, you get some Android. if you want ecosystem, you get iPad. they both have XBox apps even.

the RT is a total rerun of the Zune flop, except worse - the Zune never saw a $1 billion write-off. pull the plug.

now the Pro does have a definite global niche market - all those die-hard Windows IT guys. there has to be at least a million of them and i'm sure every last one will buy it. most already probably have. after that, well, we'll see.

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Gadgety,
User Rank: Apprentice
8/10/2013 | 6:05:18 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

Surface Pro, cool running Haswell with Intel Iris Pro 5200 graphics, 1TB SSD, Thunderbolt, LTE for data instead of just WiFi. That would be a real "Pro" device. Join RT and WP, because what WP should do, RT does. A 6-6.5 inch RT/WP device would be great.

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Palpatine,
User Rank: Apprentice
8/11/2013 | 1:02:49 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

why it would not work:
1) people does not like tiles, offering it in 3 sizes is not an answer
2) OEM are now competitors to MS (we'r a device company now, nuff said), any hw release from ms will not excite them, if not in order to issue a non ms based counteroffer to kill the competitor
3) fanfare did not work with major version, repeting the same strategy again and again meets the Einstein's definition og Ballmercy.

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StevenABaby,
User Rank: Apprentice
8/11/2013 | 2:36:21 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

I agree
Microsoft gave it their best shot and RT was a 100% total failure while the Pro version got picked up a little, although very little, by IT guys who don't like the idea of supporting a new ecosystem. So I would say RT is going to continue losing money for Microsoft for as many years as they decide to sell it. I don't think there's a lot of promise for Pro either. IT pros will buy the thing, but eventually longer term they'll be transitioning to probably Linux. If MS wants to stay in the game, they ought to be working on a Linux operating system of their own; otherwise, they're going to experience a long drawn out decline into oblivion, sorta like cobal.

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Laurianne,
User Rank: Author
8/12/2013 | 3:25:48 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

A $200 or $300 Microsoft tablet would change the nature of this whole discussion. An attractive entry-level price point has to be an option at holiday shopping time this year. But match the Nexus price? That's going to be hard for MS.

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rradina,
User Rank: Ninja
8/12/2013 | 5:08:46 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

Has Microsoft ever been idealistic? From Bill Gates purchase of DOS to the class action lawsuits stemming from customers paying for Windows even if they didn't order it with a new desktop, hasn't Microsoft ALWAYS followed the money?
Even when they almost "missed" the Internet and had to "innovate" by adding IIS (an HTTP server) to Windows NT, they demanded license fees for every seat that hit the server or a pretty hefty CPU license fee. (In terms of licensing, they viewed HTTP the same as SMB). I believe they used to offer an "Internet Connection" license when businesses used IIS for public sites, but IMO, it's few and far between that MS has given away anything. True, they did give away Internet Explorer but I don't know if anyone can call IE the produt of an idealist. Starting with IE4, Microsoft started offering very alluring but proprietary extensions that to do this day still cause forward compatibility issues and force many corporations to keep older versions of IE on their desktops.
Understand that they operate in a free country and they can create whatever products they desire and charge whatever the market will pay. I have no problem with this. I'm just tossing out the view from the other side since I've never thought of them as idealists.
Regarding Windows XP, if someone purchased it in 2001 and has either kept that same PC or transferred their XP license to more modern hardware, it's hard to argue that it wasn't money well spent. Microsoft has continued to release free security fixes for over a decade. I still don't think that qualifies them as idealists.

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rradina,
User Rank: Ninja
8/12/2013 | 5:17:48 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

RE: Join RT and WP. Other than the software Microsoft includes with RT(namely office), RT is a subset of Pro. When you say join them, Pro is already everything RT is except for add-on software. Is that what you mean by join (i.e. include free Office in Pro)?
RT is nothing more than a version of Pro that runs on ARM. It's been recompiled and combined with an ARM HAL. IMO, it's Pro's genetic clone that ended up being Dr. Evil's "mini me". Of course RT won't run any x86 software because the ARM architecture doesn't speak x86.

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Somedude8,
User Rank: Ninja
8/12/2013 | 5:28:46 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

In the days leading up the first Surface release, people were PUMPED. Microsoft had the opportunity to make a substantial impact.
However, in simple terms, RT sucks. It was a massive mistake; there should never have been a Windows RT. People were not so stoked. By the time the Surface Pro was released, MS's window was long gone.
The problem isn't the hardware, its RT. Having more RT tablets isn't going to help MS at all.

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TerryB,
User Rank: Ninja
8/12/2013 | 5:46:11 PM

re: Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets: 3 Reasons

I sometimes wonder if some of you know what an "IT Pro" is and what we do. One clue, we could care less about o/s, only what applications can run on the o/s. An o/s by itself is worthless.
COBOL is still around, running key things like taking care of your money in the banking system, after 50+ years. It runs on servers, not client devices. For business applications on the server side, COBOL still makes more sense than java, regardless how many people actually use it today for such applications.

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