Writing for Seeking Alpha, Jason Schwarz, author of Economic Weather Station, gives his top 10 reasons why Microsoft’s Surface is Dead On Arrival:
10. The Surface is a bad laptop
09. The Surface is an inferior tablet
08. Price; good luck selling any of these things for over $499
07. Lost in a sea of Android
06. What happens when Apple releases a $249 iPad mini?
05. The future is voice, not keyboard
04. Surface is a stupid name; Apple iPad’s perfectly integrated touch iOS/iPad is actually more like a surface than the Surface
03. Memories of Zune. How can anybody trust Microsoft after the Zune fiasco?
02. Microsoft brand has lost its cool factor
MacDailyNews Take: The Microsoft brand had a cool factor?
01. Steve Ballmer: The only explanation for Ballmer still being the CEO of Microsoft is that he must have photos on Bill Gates; I can’t come up with any other rational explanation
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back on April 24, 2008:
Delusional, mouth-powered-bulb-lighting, one-lucky-dorm-assignment, coattail-riding, monkey-boy-dancing, tongue-flapping, unqualified, bad-decision-making, crazy-ass… May he stay Microsoft’s CEO for as long as it takes!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JayinDC” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Why I love Microsoft’s vaporware Surface tablet – June 22, 2012
Microsoft’s Surface tablet said to be Wi-Fi only at launch; no 4G, no 3G, no 2G, not even 1G – June 22, 2012
Microsoft outsources Surface assembly to Pegatron; prices above $799 for Windows 8, above $599 for Windows RT expected – June 21, 2012
Acer founder: Microsoft will quit making tablets soon – June 21, 2012
Devastating video shows Microsoft’s Surface event aping Steve Jobs’ iPad unveiling (with video) – June 20, 2012
Thanks to Apple, Microsoft is doomed in the era of mobile computing – June 20, 2012
Why wouldn’t Microsoft let anyone touch its Surface tablets’ keyboard cover? – June 20, 2012
The cost of Microsoft’s Surface tablets – June 20, 2012
Apple’s revolutionary iPad vs. Microsoft’s anti-tablet ‘Surface’ – June 20, 2012
Microsoft’s Surface tablets provokes ‘sense of betrayal’ among Windows PC assemblers – June 20, 2012
Fox News: Copier Microsoft is doomed to fail with Surface tablet – June 19, 2012
Microsoft’s Surface tablet destined to be as successful as the Zune – June 19, 2012
Surface: Why Microsoft’s big mystery turns out to be a big mistake – June 19, 2012
Microsoft’s Suicide, er… ‘Surface’ – June 19, 2012
ZDNet Sr. Tech Editor Perlow: Microsoft’s Surface has catastrophe written all over it – June 19, 2012
Microsoft previews own ‘Surface’ tablet – June 18, 2012
Microsoft touts ‘major’ June 18 event said to showcase Windows RT tablets – June 15, 2012
ZDNet’s Kingsley-Hughes: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is an awful, horrible, painful design disaster – June 8, 2012
Analyst meets with big computer maker, finds ‘general lack of enthusiasm’ for Windows 8 – June 8, 2012
Dvorak: Windows 8 an unmitigated disaster; unusable and annoying; it makes your teeth itch – June 3, 2012
The Guardian: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is confusing as hell; an appalling user experience – March 5, 2012
More good news for Apple: Microsoft previews Windows 8 (with video) – June 1, 2011
As Long As It Takes!
ALAIT
Cheers all!
What is it with people who create “top ten” lists that they have to number them from 10 downward?
Because that’s how Letterman does it, and there wasn’t ever an official “Top 10” until Letterman.
WINDOWS 8 IS certain to send a ripple through apple stocks investor already worried if apple share has top MSFT has been a market mover.
the next time Apple fall Microsoft might just answer the call like they should have in the late 90’s when bill Gates was being converse by investors to acquire Apple computers. Microsoft might just do that next time and sell Apple patents to its partners.
how many surrealists does it take to change a lIghtbulb?
a fish.
For crying out loud, there will NOT be an iPad mini!!!!! There’s no need, it makes no sense, and complicates Apple’s product line which doesn’t have a glaring need for it.
Has anyone else noticed that these iPad mini rumors are tracking right along with the iPhone nano rumors? And now we’re talking about (some even demanding) a LARGER iPhone, and the talk about an iPhone nano has completely disappeared.
I’ll buy an iPad mini right after I buy my iPhone nano.
Nope. It will be an iPod XXL. Makes more sense bigger iPod for playing games and viewing videos but not big enough for iPad like tasks such as document creation.
A mini sized iPad sure would look good embedded in my dash. As a stock holder I would like to see the mini in millions of cars.
agreed! I think this iPad mini is actually a proposed in dash car stereo system. “iCar”
Bizlaw is right – absolutely zero need for a device sized between the current iPhone and the iPad. If electronic clutter in your automobile is what you want, your dashboard can easily accommodate a 9″ screen. If automakers were smart, they would offer nice docks for portables instead of embedding ANY electronics into their cars.
Apple needs to concentrate on incentivizing developers to use the capabilities of the units it has already created rather than flood the market with more derivatives. By and large, Mac and iOS software developers haven’t done a good job sandboxing or taking full advantage of multicore processing — 12 cores in the Mac Pros, most go unused. Nobody is taking full advantage of the Retina displays. Automakers have just started to get an inkling of what they can do with Siri, and they don’t know how to implement it at all. Thunderbolt isn’t taking off because Apple isn’t working with Intel to push it out. Mac Pros are languishing not because they aren’t capable, but because few software makers know what to do with 12-core machines.
Does Apple need more products? No. They need to teach people how to use the capabilities of the products that they already have.
I think you are right, but it would be a good idea for those of us who want to use it as a reader. For a tablet the iPad it great, as a reader it is too heavy. Having a 7″er would be great, now a lot (enough for Apple, I do not know) of people buy other crap because it is lighter and easier as a reader.
I remember when the iPad first came out how the Analyst all said it was a fail. Look want happened. I’m taking a wait and see approach. Just maybe, just maybe this will rise to the top displacing all the Android tables. Just like the Windows Phone 7 did.
They might even be as successful as the Kin phones were!
Windows Phone 7 went to the top of something? When did that happen. Course with Windows Phone 8, not being backward compatible (who plans these stupid things) should kill Windows Phone, and Android fragmentation will eventually make supporting that a complete and total pain..
Products being panned and later turning out successful works for Apple, not Microsoft. The reason? Apple is the one driving the bus. Apple knows where these products are going, everyone else is madly madly so they can’t be as innovative. I’ll grant that Microsoft’s actual Tablet product is not nearly as copy cat as most others (just stupid) but they have no idea how or why they got here and they don’t know where their going.
Err that was supposed to say madly following…hate that you can’t edit these.
Apple: iPod+ iPhone +iOS = Big successes + DNA lead in to iPad.
Microsoft: Zune + KIN + Vista, oops, WinowsOS = Really expensive failures + if there is anything good from these to cast a halo effect on the Surface I sure don’t see it.
Steve Ballmer is enjoying retirement or looking for a new job in 2013.
Actually, the iPad was in development before the iPhone. Steve saw the test OS and wanted to scale it down to phone size, hence the iPhone. I’m curious if the iPad would’ve been such a hit had it not had the iPhone precede it, to which millions of people were already used to iOS and Apps and touch screen interfaces.
But yes, Apple actually plans ahead, they don’t do things for the sake of being different, but different and better.
Great point
Microsoft has always had Dork-Factor.
Never, never, EVER did Microsoft have one iota of cool.
Balmer even has a dork in his mouth above…in public.
He must hail from the town of Dorking, UK [http://www.visitdorking.com] where they even have Dorking Halls where you can go dorking as long as you pay the fee [http://www.dorkinghalls.co.uk]
Never, never, EVER did Microsoft have one iota of cool.
Well, to get picky:
The Xbox has garnered some ‘cool’ because of particular games for it. That is, when one’s Xbox is not suffering from The Red Ring Of Death. Therefore, vicariously, the Xbox has attained some Cool Factor. Kind of creepy and undeserved.
I actually kinda like the name. My problem with MS is that I just don’t trust them. Already completely changing the foundations of WP is a perfect example. They just aren’t stable in their vision enough for me to invest in their ecosystem.
The point about the name was not that it’s stupid by its self but it’s stupid for this product. This product isn’t intended to be used as a surface most of the time. It’s intended to be used a pseudo laptop in an upright position.
You didn’t watch Conan Obrien couple of night ago,
The name surface os a great name, as it will be a surface to place your iPad on
I have no complaints with #4. There’s nothing wrong with the name Surface.
There are many reasons why it will be greeted with a yawn, not the least of which is that it is far too late to the game with nothing mind-blowing to get you past that point, but the name is fine.
I don’t agree that the name is fine. In my house “surface” refers to something about to covered up by something else. Ergo I like that Microsoft has named it this way!!
Okay, one point for accuracy.
I can see the surface on the bottom of a pile of newspapers.
For me, ‘Surface’ will always translate into:
BIG ASS TABLE
[On June 18, 2012 Microsoft changed the name of the BIG ASS TABLE to ‘PixelSense’, offending pixies everywhere.]
Hip! Hip! Hip! Huzzah and Hooray!
Where does Uncle Fester want to go today?
Enough with these mini iPad thingies, I want a 15 inch iPad with a retina display and a haptic virtual keyboard! Giveme, Giveme!
M$ has a minipad something in the dash of some of the Ford and Lincoln cars. I understand its driving the sales of the cars into the cellar. I wonder what an iPad mini would do in its place designed and programed by Apple?
Everyone I’ve talked to that’s used the Microsoft brand Ford Touch stuff says its awful.
Coming in iOS 6 it looks like your iPhone, in conjunction with the improved Siri and Eyes Free setting, will be a better version of Ford thing.
Maybe Ballmer does have dirt on Gates: A video of his brutal MMA skills.
Microsoft hasn’t done anything of note in the past decade, if not longer, why would Surface be anything else but a failure?
They claim that Xbox is a success but it will be years before they show a profit on it, if ever. Ballmer will probable screw with Xbox and replace it with an other failure, before it gets in the green, after all Fing-up is what monkey boy does best.
What if this so called mini iPad is actually only being produced for use in vehicles by the car manufacturers? Isn’t that possible?
There’s only 10 reasons???
I have no idea if the Surface will be a success but MDN is running enough stories about the thing I’m beginning to think they are worried about it!
It’s not like MDN writes these stories, they just aggregate them. I think they’re just having as much fun watching Microsoft implode on its self as the rest of us (well most of us) are.
You’re “beginning to think MDN is worried about it”? Oh god, that is one sad attempt to puff up the Surface.
If you want to know why MDN keeps aggregating stories about it, look up the word schadenfreude.
Your picture of Ballmer T. Clown is priceless! Now, go find a picture of “Uncle Fester” from the old “Addams Family” TV show and see if they weren’t “separated at birth”!
It will fail because people will just use it as a laptop
these days are so satisfying, thanks Ballmer T. Clown.
Isn’t life a bitch?
It seems so unfair.
here on the the ground,
The Clown in midair.
Send in the clown, there’s got to be clowns,
Ballmer T. Clown,
Don’t bother, he’s here.
Isn’t it a bitch?
Don’t you approve?
keeps tearin’ up your ass,
Monkeyboy can’t move.
Making his entrance again,
With his simian flair.
Sure of waiting lines,
No one is there.
Don’t you hate old farts?
Ballmer’s fault, I fear.
“I thought you’d want what I want”
Sorry, my dear.
But where is the clown?
Ballmer T. Clown,
Don’t bother, he’s here.
Isn’t it a bitch?
Isn’t it queer?
Losing your market this late,
In your career.
And where is the Zune?
And where’s The Sewerface?
In the vaporware stratosphere.
Send in the Clown,
Ballmer T Clown,
Don’t bother,
I’mgonnagolistentoSondheimonmyiPad,
AND DRINK ME…
A BEER!
Inspired. I’ll have a beer too please!
Steve Ballmer is a wonderful man. Leave Steve alone. I mean it!
#5 is right on the mark- as Scotty knows, beam him down and ask him!
Ballmer is the best CEO on the planet. Heck the entire Universe. Better still, best in all of the multiverse and interdimensional Fantasy/Reality everything. He need to stay forever at Microsoft!
Now this is the MDN Take that I remember fondly! Great Photoshop of Uncle Fester with Ballmer and a funny Take to go with it. Just sucks that MDN just produces a few of these.:-(
You know I gotta respond:
06. What happens when Apple releases a $249 iPad mini?
NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
No market.
No profit.
No Apple interest.
Let the rats fight over the crumbs. Have fun with that!