“Microsoft will give attendees at the International Society for Technology in Education Conference a free Surface RT as part of an effort to push technology use in the classroom,” Travis Pope reports for Gotta Be Mobile.
“As part of the ITSE event, attendees will be provided with a Microsoft Surface RT for use at their local schools,” Pope reports. “According to the organization, that means a gift of around 10,000 Surface RT tablets heading to local schools across the country.”
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Pope reports, “Though not entirely education related, it’s worth noting that the offer of free Surface RT tablets comes on the heels of more than a few promotions for Surface RT tablets, including slightly reduced pricing inside Staples locations, free Touch Keyboards and Type Keyboards for Surface purchasers and offers for a $99 Surface RT for attendees of the company’s TechEd North America and Europe events.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, the lesson for these educators is:
How to Liquidate a Failed Product.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dale S.” for the heads up.]
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I hope to God that Microsoft just ends this. Win8 is a bigger joke than Linux.
Microsoft gives away 10,000 Surface RT tablets to teachers.
Teachers debate 5 minutes, give them back and ask for 10,000 iPad minis instead.
Makes me glad we didn’t attend ITSE conference this year! We usually go…
‘Microsoft gives away 10,000 Surface RT tablets to educators’ where they took them back to their schools and were immdiately put to good use in the lunch room as cafeteria trays!
Yea, Ballmer called me a couple of days ago and complained over the huge stock of RT-plates in Redmond storages.
He asked what do to do with them. I told him to give them away if there was anyone wanting one. So now he shipped another 10.000 of them. I like his strategy, I like it a lot.
It’s like giving away 10,000 shit sandwiches.
In other news, Microsoft announces a 100% jump in Surface RT shipments.
I guess thats better then burying them
I’m sure MS is making a strong push into education, albeit a desperate one (and probably futile). Many of the DOE employee in NYC willfully use Google Docs and iOS devices in personal use, as well as DELL desktops in official capacity (school mandate). It’s challenging to see how Surface can make a noticeable dent in a “system” that “works”: [everyone] has a Google account and [everyone] has an iOS device. Even the students have the latest iOS devices and are unwilling to abandon their platform of choice. I would take a free Surface, even if just for curiosity and novelty. I could see using it in an environment where I’d be unwilling to expose my iOS devices to risk, like on a field trip (as long as I have some kind of cloud-based sync, all would be fine).
The misstake Microsoft did was to nit emulate Apple here. Essentially what we have now is Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT. Apple got OS X and iOS. iOS for both tablets and phones. The none RT tablets are just a laptop really with a touch screen. It’s all really confusing and Microsoft handicapped themselves with providing two incompatible tablet systems. Keep the laptop, great, and dona real tablet. I think this behaviour is common for old stale companies. They are afraid to go All In on something new. I don’t understand what Mucrosoft think they can pull off here. They created a whole new system for phones but for tablets they think they have to leverage Windows? It has shown in the past that its nit working well. They should scrap their pro version if the tablet and the RT tablets. And make Windows Phone 8 the system that powers their tablets too like Apple. RT was a good thought but it was a misstake, merge it with WP8 and scrap the pro tablets. Keep net books net books.