“Microsoft continues to see weak sales for its Surface Pro 3 tablet and is reportedly planning to cancel the product line since shipment performance has been far lower than expectations, according to sources from the upstream supply chain,” Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai report for DigiTimes.
“Lacking a sufficient number of distribution partners, plus high prices, the first- and second-generation Surface tablets are estimated to have created losses of about US$1.7 billion, the sources noted,” Chen and Tsai report. “The sources believe sales of the Surface Pro 3 are unlikely to surpass one million units, adding that Microsoft is also not very aggressive about development of a next-generation Surface and is likely to terminate the product line.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iPad, killer.
As we wrote over one and two years ago, respectively:
That dumbass kickstand is yet another ill-considered, misguided, corporate committee-driven “differentiation” squirted out of Microsoft’s back door unbidden onto the public.
Microsoft is staffed with stupid and/or lazy people. There’s no other explanation besides crippling narcissism – which is a very real possibility. Most people use iPads while lounging around. All Microsoft’s Surface “team” had to do was buy some real iPads and use them for a few weeks. Steve Jobs himself even demonstrated the iPad while reclining in a comfy leather chair, not sitting upright at a friggin’ desk. Microsoft was shown the way and, once again, they failed to properly follow Apple’s lead. By now, that’s just stupid and/or lazy.
Microsoft suffers from delusions of grandeur. They think they matter and that people will buy their pretend iPad over other pretend iPads because it’s from Microsoft. Microsoft does not matter. Microsoft no longer has the power to sell superfluous products. The world already has iPad. The thinking world finally woke up and moved on from Microsoft’s soul-sapping dreck. That clueless Microsoft haven’t figured this out years ago (Zune, Kin, how many total face-plants do they need?) is illustrative of the depths of their delusions.
As with Zune, Kin, and Surface, Microsoft is unnecessary in today’s world. Their rapidly retiring/expiring IT Doofus firewall is the only thing keeping them around today. – MacDailyNews, September 24, 2013
People don’t want their iPads to be like notebooks. That’s why there are MacBook Airs and Pros. Neither do people want fake iPads with ill-considered twists, superfluous ports, and a silly kickstand, they want real iPads and the massive, vibrant ecosystem that goes with them. – MacDailyNews, June 20, 2012
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “pridon328” and “Tom E” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Microsoft pays $400 million for product placement, then NFL announcer calls Surface tablet ‘iPad-like’ on air – September 8, 2014
iPad, Tablet of Mayhem.
Microsoft has mainly specialized in ketchup products, products in which they tried to copy an existing product and kill. They were, so to speak, trying pass a car by following it.
Microsoft’s failures or false starts include the SPOT watch, their wireless router (I owned one), Slate as a subscription web site, MSN as a dial-up ISP (I used it, it was introduced right before dial-up died), Passport (I signed up for it, it was a universal password service), Windows ME, Windows Vista, Encarta (I bought it. It was a CD based encyclopedia, killed by large HD sizes and the internet), Zune (imitation iPod thus always one generation behind), and now the Surface, an attempt to one-up the iPad. The kickstand sounds great until you wonder how easy it is to break it off and what you’d do if it did.
Microsoft’s successes are rooted in the business deal, not the product. Microsoft is customer oriented, but their customers are distributors and manufacturers, not people. Microsoft products are primarily designed to be sold, not to be used. Microsoft software comes with the defaults set for demos, not ordinary use.
MS-DOS succeeded only because they had an arrangement with IBM that allowed them to sell it to other manufacturers. Everyone had to be compatible with the IBM-PC, so there we go.
Windows succeeded because of the licensing. Manufacturers were charged a low cost per machine they manufactured. If they sold a machine without Windows, they had to pay the license fee anyway. So they put Windows on all their machines.
Well written, Ken.
“Since the first model was released in April 2010, Apple has sold more than 225 million iPads.”
What’s a Surface?
And which airline is using the Surface for its flight bag?
So what exactly are they going to sell in all those empty stores? Toasters?
Scientology self-help manuals and e-readers. The women’s section of the store mainly sells dildos.
Seventeen – Thousand Million dollars wasted.
I guess that $400 million they paid the NFL didn’t pay off as they’d hoped. Idiots. When has MS ever succeed in a product category they didn’t have to steal or buy from someone else?
Don’t worry I’m sure all those PC apologists will give Microsoft a 2nd chance.
Actually it’s more like a 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th chance, but who’s counting?
I am actually, PC types are morons.
“It doesn’t appeal to business customers, because it doesn’t have a kickstand, which makes it not a very good email machine.”
true, and you dont want to have to hold it, since you need both hands to salute it every once in a while (cntrl+alt+del)
You know they are arrogant and deluded in equal measure when you watch their adverts extolling the. Irtue of a product that can replace your tablet and laptop openly lie about its qualities to do so and yet amazingly under all that showy fighting talk the product itself in use looks like a year 8 science project made out of scraps, that only a failed IT doofus with a Steve Ballmer fixation would see as an alternative to a real light weight laptop. They just do not get it.
The Register has a very heartening article assuring us that the Surface is NOT dead yet. They’ve accompanied one of their promos for the article with colorful shot of The Living Dead howling for brains to consume. And so the Surface shall!
Microsoft confirms Surface NOT DEAD YET, next-gen version coming
Denies report it’s planning to axe the line
‘The Surface is coming to get your Barbara!’
Spend Microsoft! spend Spend SPEND SPEND!!!
Muahahaha!
No joke: Just finished watching the first episode of the new season of The Walking Dead on AMC. At the end of the episode, as the credits start to roll, a voice-over intones in that coming-soon-to-a-theatre-near-you deep voice: “Microsoft Surface presents scenes from the next episode of The Walking Dead”. I could not believe my ears! LOL
I was an infidel but now I have converted to a Mac book pro!!