“Microsoft appears to be ‘sold out’ of its 128GB tablet/notebook hybrid Surface Pro,” Daniel Eran Dilger writes for RoughlyDrafted.
“Selling out of your inventory means ‘the market has spoken,’ says Ed Bott of ZDNet,” Dilger writes. “This is because subtracting an unknown number of sales from an unknown number of units in inventory provides clear proof that an unknown number of events have occurred.”
Dilger writes, “Unfortunately for Ed Bott and the ‘Surface Must Be Successful, Damn the Reviews’ crowd, this isn’t isn’t the first time Microsoft has sold out of a product that subsequently did so poorly that the company abandoned the entire business. Remember the Zune HD? That was just over three years ago in 2009, back before Microsoft scrambled to port Windows 7 to the ARM architecture for the Surface RT. It was widely reported to have “sold out” from Amazon to Newegg to BestBuy. Two years later it was discontinued because in reality it never sold well.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: GWAK.
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Microsoft knows their customer base. Microsoft fans will swallow anything. They remind me of the cereal commercial “Let Mikey eat it, he’ll eat anything.”
MDN means Surface Pro = GWTW, the title of a Clark Gable/Vivien Leigh movie. Only these winds have the stench of the “passing” variety.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say Microsoft fans would buy anything. I recall that “netbooks” were going to take over and be the dominant form factor, but that didn’t happen, did it? Everyone hated Vista, even though it was the basis for Win7. Win8 is a weird mutation of Win7 and the windows phone interface, but I think it too will fall flat on it’s face.
It’s fun and easy to turn Microsoft victims into metaphorical cattle. But IRL we know there is a diversity of important reasons why people are Microsoft victims.
Sometimes I think the reason Samsung’s versions of Apple ideas are doing so well is that there are people who plain hate Apple, and refuse to buy their stuff—regardless of how good it is. However, those people have finally come to the realization that anything Microsloth makes repeatedly sucks. Samsung gave these Apple haters an out. They didn’t have to buy Apple to use a product superior to anything Microsloth releases—even if Samsung’s is not as good as Apple’s, they can save face and say they don’t own an Apple product.
The official number is … 7.
That’s right, 7 have been purchased, so now they are out. Crazy thing is, only 7 were Pre-order’d…. Imagine that.
You might be wrong, I guess it is 8, not 7. Windows 8 on 8 copies, that makes a lot of sense.
It’s pretty easy to sell out when multiple reports over the weekend indicated that virtually retailer including Best Buy and Staples stores received no more than 6 units per location.
… if that’s accurate, probably half of them were 128 GB models. So they sold about 3 per store. Success!
funny but true
Exactly, selling out either means people are buying them faster than you can make them or you’re not making them as fast as people are buying them. In this case Microsoft’s probably slowing down production, so they don’t get stuck with a load of crap on their hands.
I think that many people bought them to just see what they are like and planned to return them after evaluating them.
That’s just masochistic. I don’t need to lick a cow’s ass to know it would be an unpleasant experience. If Billy Bob says it’s a shit experience I’ll take his word on it. The Surface Pro reviews are good enough for me.
Wow. I guess that you think that ‘colourful’ language impresses. I think it says that you are closer to the Ozark Mountains than Silicon Valley.
When there are lines at all Microsoft retail stores before the availability of a new product on the shelves, I will believe those independent reports.
Until then it is all Balmer S.
Frequently there are lines at mS stores for GrandOpenings and new products because they are giving away free tickets or have some entertainer. Lines are not to buy the product. MS plans to open in Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu in the summer. I plan to do a fist hand report. Apple has 3 stores in Honolulu. Ala Moana store does killer business.
@pridon: Can you post a photo of your fist hand report? Is that anything like a facepalm reaction?
Dilger is a little asspimp lefty fk. He can write what he wants, the little kunt. Who cares about MS feces. Dilger, you lib turd, give it up and quit writing.
I’m sure Daniel has been waiting with bated breath for your advice. He just had to know if it was ok with you for him to keep writing. I’m sure he’ll have to listen to you.
Oh my.
So you don’t like him? Is that what you’re saying?
Thanks for the heads up. Here all this time I was fooled into thinking he is very sharp, with a keen insight into technological and competitive issues, plus a record of highly dependable predictability. You just never know about people.
“This is because subtracting an unknown number of sales from an unknown number of units in inventory provides clear proof that an unknown number of events have occurred.
Comparing this unknown number of sales events with a parallel figure derived by subtracting an unknown number of sales from an unknown number of units in inventory of a second model simply provides reliable proof that Microsoft is an unstoppable force in tablet computing. Whew! the iPad nightmare is over.”
Quotes like this make wading through 10 pages of Dilger diatribe all worthwhile.
Did he mean an “unstoppable farce?”
There hasn’t been enough time for the returns to hit yet.
I have a friend who works MS retail. He said they had a line at his store for the surface pro. That does not mean those people won’t later return it however.
How many Justin Bieber tickets were offered to the first 100 in line?
That’s the normal way Microsloth creates an instant line.
Gawking at the gall of calling that GWAK a success.
Yippee lets all queue up at the super “Microsoft Stores” to get our hands on the “amazing” the “state of the fart…err art” new device called “Suffer Pro” tablets..before the total stock of 10500 units run out..
Just a variation on MS giving out concert tickets when they open one of their stores. It’s a facade to give the appearance that a lot of people (especially young kids) are interested in checking out the MS store when the only reason that they are there is to get the free tickets.
Makes a good headline for the Low Information Pundits who are either too lazy or incompetent to see or report beyond the MS smokescreen.
It’s probably more of a question of where they “sold out”? My guess is Microsloth shipped everything they had in inventory to their customers … Best Buy, Kmart, Dollar Tree, where ever it is one buys Microsloth products these days. But I’m confident there are plenty of these turds lying on shelves all over the globe being ignored. But in Microsloth’s mind – their warehouse shelves are empty so … they’re “sold out”.
I actually know several people who have purchased a surface rt/pro and really love them. Unlike the zune, which I always assumed was more of on urban legend.
Remember Zune HD, released in 2009. Day one: sold out around the US. Where did it land? These numbers games are meaningless without actual numbers….
4 units
The Surface Pro is no different than any other crappy i5 ultrathin except the keyboard is even crappier. Not surprised they sold 10 or 20 thousand.
We won’t see much returns or bad reviews since only a MS zombie would buy one in the first place – see Ed Bott for example.
Ballmer sold them all to his kids.
Except for the one he sold to his mother, AT DOUBLE THE COST!
This incident only proves the point that Microsoft are, at this point, unable to provide an adequate number of specifically 128 GB Surface Pro devices.
The next questions:
Q: Is this lack of product due to manufacturing problems?
Q: Is the lack of product due to Microsoft’s lack of planning and prediction?
In any case, the revelation that the specified ‘space’ on these devices is significantly HOGGED by Windows itself is freaking out must-have buyers. They OBVIOUSLY don’t want to end up screwed with not enough space on the device for THEIR data. Going for the 128 GB model is the only solution.
This also points out how fracking STUPID and DECEITFUL Microsoft is to load up what is, on ALL other devices, the user’s data space with their own huge pile of code. It consists of deceitful marketing if only by tradition. Microsoft will bite you in the butt one way or the other. Thus I hate Microsoft.
Hey Microsoft hating trolls, surface 128 in tha haOuse with w8 pro beechies.
Don’t you mean Surface 83? Since you only get 83GB of usable space?
Wow, a whole page of mac fanboys converging to tell each other what they want to hear. Everybody who has a life raise their stylus!