“Morgan Stanley’s Adam Holt, who rates Microsoft at Overweight, has a note out today about the Surface, writing that the price points are competitive with Apple (AAPL) and largely in-line with his expectations,” Teresa Rivas reports for Barron’s.
Rivas reports, “From the note: ‘Pricing appears competitive: $499 for a 32 GB Surface is less than the $599 for a new 32 GB iPad with WiFi, while $699 for a 64 GB Surface plus keyboard is consistent with the $699 cost of a 64 GB iPad, with no keyboard-and MSFT’s flat keyboard is itself a differentiator…'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iCal’ed.
And, in other words, if Microsoft hits these estimates – big “IF” – Apple’s going to outsell all of Microsoft’s Surface tablets for the entire 2013 year in a mere two weekends, the first following the imminent launch of the iPad mini and the second following the launch of the next-gen iPad in March or thereabouts.
Related articles:
Microsoft Surface RT tablet Wi-Fi-only; 32GB for $599 with, $499 without keyboard, $699 for 64GB – October 16, 2012
Microsoft airs first TV ad for Surface tablet (with video) – October 15, 2012
Apple’s ‘iPad mini’ to obliterate Microsoft’s Windows 8, Surface RT tablet launches – October 13, 2012
Acer CEO to Microsoft: ‘Think twice’ about Surface tablets – August 7, 2012
Microsoft Surface tablet pricing leaked; US$1,000 for ‘cheapest’ Windows RT model – July 26, 2012
Ballmer: Uh, yeah, ‘Surface is just a design point,’ you know – July 10, 2012
Microsoft’s Buffoon, er… Ballmer throws down gauntlet against Apple – July 10, 2012
Microsoft reportedly dumps ‘VaporMg’ chassis, will use ‘VaporMg’ only as ‘surface treatment’ – July 9, 2012
Microsoft’s downfall: Inside the executive e-mails and cannibalistic culture that fueled Microsoft’s lost decade – July 7, 2012
HP said to dump Microsoft over Surface; to cozy up to Google Android for tablet efforts – July 2, 2012
Bad news for Microsoft’s iPad killer? – July 2, 2012
Dear Microsoft, Steve Balmer and Bill Gates: What is up with your obsession with keyboards? – June 28, 2012
Jason Schwarz: Top 10 reasons why Microsoft’s Surface is DOA – June 22, 2012
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
Hahahaha…This guy should be a stand up comic.
Please, there aren’t that many corpses floating face down in a swimming pool to buy that piece of crap.
u r right
apple board, be careful, msft will sell 9 million. nobody will buy ipad
never heard this joke in this century
So MSFT is going to spend about $100 in advertising for each tablet sold? That’s the biggest joke ever told!
They spend $100 for each tabled stuffed into channel.
Typical fat-boy armchair analyst crap.
Apple management probably still laughing their backend off when they read about Windows 8 table news. However, I believe Apple’s QA departments will perform some sort of comparative analysis on Windows 8 tablets.
Any Apple employee on this site can shed some light on this? 🙂
Surface kills iPad in less than a year!
Ahahahahahah! Wow. That was good one!
Wait, were you being serious? 😯
Nah he wadn’t being sereeous! That would make him look like a big fat idjit galoot!
I don’t think the Surface will beat the iPad, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it does pretty well. If a billion dollars worth of Advertising can buy an election, I have every reason to believe it will influence many people.
Don’t forget, people who read (and comment) on this site are probably much more technically knowledgeable than most of the people seeing the commercials.
I still meet people in Best Buy who truly believe that Microsoft is “The Computer Company” and Dells are nice machines.
Just wait until all these ads hit just before x-mas. I believe it will sell. (but with $1 billion in ads to stupid people, it may sell, but how on earth can they make a profit?–but that’s a different story)
iSheep are so full of themselves. Democrats I say Democrats!
Enjoy your Partridge Family Schoolbus user interface in Windows 8 I hope it gives you sunspots.
Is that you Paul Thurrott? Give it up already!
Is M$ cannabalizing their mouse business by not including it with the keyboard attachment? I bet Ballmer wouldn’t let that happen, he’s so attached.
I am waiting for the world’s 1st Windows 8 tablet BSOD message. 🙂
Can’t wait. That is, I can’t wait for all those users of the Surface to get Blue Screens Of Death, massive security updates every two hours and wow, a portable device with a keyboard?? Yikes. If 100 folks buy this I’d be surprised!
Why hasn’t someone Photoshopped this already!?
My daughter experienced her first ever Kernel Panic the other day. She had no idea what it was. My wife, who is a very heavy Mac user has never seen one.
BTW, a Kernel Panic is the Mac equivalent of a BSOD.
This is hilarious! Microsoft will supposedly sell 3 million Surface tablets in 2 months? What kind of crack is that guy smoking.
Sell? No, no no, you mean SHIP!
Try 7 million. The most gorgeous well designed tablet to ever make its way to the market. iPads are for iSheep and iSheep are all Democrats.
Gary blowjob is that you??
Well, well, well. You love Micro-fluff so much much you’re on an Apple forum? Good for you.
Although I did read that more Democrats have iPhones and more Republicans have Android. I have no idea what kind of person has Microsoft, but they can usually be found on Apple Forums 🙂
AND WHAT DID ‘BIG EARS’ DO THEN ‘NODDY’ ?
he bust all the goblins for trolling!
With the current iPad lineup, the new iPad mini and the Nook, Nexus and Kindle, I don’t see how the Surface has a snowball’s chance in Hades.
If they had been able to price it at $399 with the KB/cover, maybe.
Then comes iPad 4 in the spring.
I’m guessing the Surface will be on a RIM/HPalm fire sale trajectory by March at the latest.
They’re only selling this in ms stores…ouch…not much of a fighting chance!
Not they’re not, get your facts right!!
Online too. That still does not put them in; BB, Wal-Mart, Target, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint… No one will be able to compare them to iPad or Android tablets. The Win8 tabs that do go there will be a few OEMs, not MS. When MS fans realize that it is not full Win8 and their old software won’t run on it; Office is limited and mostly in the cloud, this will kill it. The price of the Pro will be true test.
Only WiFi for now. Not a serious effort.
Yep, it will sell into the channel 3 million tablets, with 2.9 million of them eventually returned into a giant smelter in Redmond.
As opposed to iPhones and iPads which are either sold on ebay with broken screens or discarded to the rubbish because they’re not the latest?
Hey, Redmond has pretty strict air quality laws so smoking 2.9 mil won’t happen there.
If you really want a keyboard that bad, you really are not looking for a tablet, but an ultrabook or a MacBook Air.
You have that absolutely right, and there is a mouse for it.
“Microsoft says its new ‘Surface’ tablet computer will be more like a traditional computer than other ultra-portable devices, such as Apple’s segment-leading iPad.”
http://www.infopackets.com/news/business/microsoft/2012/20120803_microsoft_surface_tablet_gets_new_mouse_keyboard.htm
That’s a lot.
They once said they’d sell 3 million big ass tables as well. In the end it was closer to 30.
It’s being retooled. Coming out soon, Microsoft Bigger Ass Table for consumers. The Pro version is the Microsoft Gigantor Ass Table, including 6 Car Battery Packs to extend your Big Ass Pleasure Time!
How about the Ballmer version? It’s a “Huge Ass” device.
They gonna call it the Vaginormous device?
“Sell” 3 million Surface tablets, or stuff 3 million into the retail channel?
Balmer “$500, and no keyboard… I like our plan”. Seems he agrees with Apple now, playing catchup, albeit in tablets.
Well, yes… If Microsoft manufactures 3 million tablets for this initial launch, they will eventually get sold when the price drops low enough, just as all the HP Touchpads eventually got sold for $99. They can even stuff the channels during 2012 and claim they “shipped” 3 million during 2012, and do the fire sale after the holidays…
Meanwhile, Apple will SELL almost every iPad they produce at FULL retail price, as soon as they are produced. Unit sales statistics are misleading, because a tablet sold during the fire sale counts the same as one sold at full price. Amazon and Google are trying to avoid the fire sale by setting the initial price at money-losing fire sale levels (with a hope of making a profit some other way). Microsoft is predictably going “old school” and trying the strategy that did not work for ANY previous competitor that tried to go head-to-head with iPad.
Many people seem to miss the fact that 32 GB is the smallest available for one reason: The bloated mess of an OS takes up a significant chunk of that space.
Imagine if they launched a 16 GB version. 6 GB of useable space! YAY.
I seem to recall when I bought my Apple II back in 1978 that I had to up the RAM to 32k because Woz’ newly-written DOS had a 10k overhead…
… many – the majority – mutual fund providers who feature MSFT in the Top 10% of their portfolios. This stock has been drifting down like an Autumn leaf for over a decade now yet they can’t see their way clear to reduce their positions, much less sell it off. Of COURSE they claim to be optimistic.
Several years later and the best that Microsoft can do is to roughly match Apple’s iPad prices? Yeah, that’s the way to break into a market and attempt to challenge the market leader. Good luck with that…
Now hold on just a minute. That can’t be right! Microsoft’s very own Steve Ballmer told us that 400 million tablets and phones would be running Windows 8! 400 million!
http://allthingsd.com/20120905/ballmer-in-a-year-400-million-devices-will-be-running-the-latest-windows-os/
That means that Nokia and company need to sell 390+million phones! Pronto!
So here we are, ten years after Steve Ballmer took the reins. MS stock is about $29…almost exactly where it was a decade ago. Nice job Stevie boy!
They might have 400 million Windows 8 sold, but that’s if Wells Fargo and Bank of America update the OS in their ATM’s.
Zune was going to be the iPod killer. Long live Zune!
First day of pre order microsoft sold out of windows surface RT.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/microsoft-sells-out-of-500-surface-rt-pre-orders-in-one-day/
Yes, but how many did they actually sell? Selling out is easy when you don’t have many to begin with.
This surface really looks like one clunky pos.