Microsoft’s defective Surface scandal intensifies

“When I wrote that Microsoft had a potential Consumer Reports problem on its hands, I didn’t see — at least not yet — the tip of an iceberg,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “Clearly the story has taken hold and has garnered attention in lots of places. It also raises the specter of a wider range of product defects that Microsoft should take seriously.”

“Now a published report quoting analyst Ben Bajarin, of Creative Strategies, provides yet a further reality check on CR’s conclusion that 25% of Microsoft Surface tablets and notebooks have developed serious defects during the first two years of ownership,” Steinberg writes. “As a result, CR will no longer recommend them.”

“And now there’s yet another published report claiming that a leaked memo from Microsoft lists unusually high return rates for the Surface Book and the Surface Pro 4,” Steinberg writes. “This is not just about owners having problems, but about buying products that result in customers sending them back. The memo was reportedly written by Panos Panay, a Microsoft VP, and published by Paul Thurrott, a known Windows advocate. If anything, you might expect Thurrott to skew his coverage positively towards Microsoft, so it’s particularly damning that he’d be the one to reveal such damaging news.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Again, what do you expect from a second-rate bloatware producer that got rich from poorly mimicking Apple’s Mac, then got run over by the iPhone and iPad? It’s no big surprise that Microsoft doesn’t know how to produce quality hardware either.

SEE ALSO:
Leaked Microsoft memo reveals failure-prone Surface Book suffers from high return rates – August 14, 2017

22 Comments

      1. I was the owner of a “sh*t brown Zune bought at a closeout sale at Computer City. Bought it for the 30 GB drive and the fact that it had an FM radio for $100. Got about $20 worth of use out of it.

    1. To be fair, Microsoft can sometimes achieve a decent product given enough iterations. The Zune was reportedly fairly good. And the Xbox got better over time, too – enough to sell decently well, anyway, after the red ring of death. But Microsoft started as a software company, and it ought to stick closer to its roots, I think.

      I wonder how much profit M$ ended up with after the customer returns and such.

      Soon to follow – class action lawsuit. There is no way that the lawyers can resist given the leaked M$ memo.

  1. Panos Panay is a typical unreliable Greek. lets not forget Polish peasant Sinofsky who was the face of MS tablets when introduced to a select audience carefully selected to not make a scene

  2. Had the occasion to use a MSFT Surface over the weekend; everything I read was true: 1) too heavy (WAY too heavy) 2) not intuitive; 3)obscure command structure; 4) cumbersome. Previous usage of iPads a world apart – positively. The real world difference is simply unbelievable.

  3. Microsoft having trouble producing quality hardware? To do that they needed to produce quality software or operating systems. Windows has been a problem for years, & that’s being kind to them. I worked in the Tech Support field for 14 years, & rule one, if the Company or Corporation used Microsoft it was & is a great guarantee for work and a decent salary.

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