“Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday unveiled a new laptop, a tablet, three phones and a fitness tracker meant to keep people tied to its array of online services… They face heavy competition from Apple and Android products,” Anick Jesdanun reports for The Associated Press. “With the new lineup, Microsoft appears to be targeting professionals, people more likely to have Windows already in their office computers.”
MacDailyNews Take: Professional dinosaurs, to be exact.
Jesdanun reports, “In closing a nearly two-hour event in New York, CEO Satya Nadella said the latest devices are part of Microsoft’s vision ‘to move people from needing Windows to choosing Windows to loving Windows.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Poor bastage must’ve hit his head… hard.
“The surprise announcement was a new Surface Book laptop, which comes after Microsoft has been touting its Surface tablets as replacements for laptops. Microsoft says the Surface Book is for scientists, engineers and gamers who need more performance than a tablet,” Jesdanun reports. “The screen is detachable and becomes a tablet with a clipboard feel while on the go. But unlike Surface tablets with keyboard covers attached magnetically, the Surface Book’s keyboard is core to the device.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, but can it toast while refrigerating?
“The 13.5-inch laptop starts at $1,499, compared with $899 for the new, 12.3-inch Surface Pro 4 tablet. The Pro 4’s keyboard cover costs an extra $130,” Jesdanun reports. “Apple Inc. is starting to go after those customers, too, with its upcoming iPad Pro, which starts at $799, plus $169 for a physical keyboard. Apple already has a MacBook Pro laptop line, starting at $1,299, for power users.”
“Just two years ago, Microsoft wrote down $900 million for losses related to its first-generation Surface RT tablet,” Jesdanun reports. “Microsoft also sought to use Tuesday’s event to revive its struggling phone business. Over the summer, the company wrote down $8.4 billion for the value of Nokia’s phone business, which it bought just a year earlier. It also announced 7,800 job cuts in the phone business. The new Lumia 950 and 950 XL are the first high-end Windows phones from Microsoft since February 2014, which was around the time Nadella became CEO and before Microsoft completed its purchase of Nokia… The new phones start at $549 and will be available in November.”
MacDailyNews Take: DOA.
“The new Microsoft Band fitness tracker, meanwhile, will now track elevation and work with the company’s Cortana virtual assistant,” Jesdanun reports. “It will be available for $249 starting Oct. 30.”
MacDailyNews Take: Stillborn.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A cavalcade of crap for the clueless.
At first glimpse, the new Microsoft hardware looks quite decent. Just too bad it’s running Windows.
Just like 90% plus of the worlds computers.
How is life in the minority? The total Apple install-base equates to the “Margin of Error” in most IT surveys.
the collective IQ here adds to the number of buttons in one of them mice for fisher price computers made in cupertino
The recent Microsoft announcement is a real wakeup call for Apple. Microsoft are now producing premium devices at a premium prices and attacking Apple’s heartland. This is not really a problem for OEMs who have historically raced to the bottom on low profit margins but will follow Microsoft into the top end and put further pressure on Apple.
Surface Pro has led a great resurgence in the portable computing category. Despite early write downs on the cheaper Windows RT model, there has not been a write down on the higher end Pro model. Even now the Surface Pro 3 is outselling the cheaper Surafce 3 model. This actually shows that people are willing to spend substantially more to get more in the windows ecosystem.
Other companies including OEMs, Apple and Google have sought to go down the 2-in-1 tablet form factor, which is great for all consumers as it will further drive innovation.
Microsoft and the OEMs will come after the high end of the market with these products and Apple will really need to innovate which they have not done in a long time. Rather, Apple has actually turned themselves into a single product company. They have a reasonable marketshare on iPhone but it still lags well behind Android. Other products are under extreme pressure to perform. iPad sales are in decline year on year and Apple has all but abandoned the MacPro and desktop market.
Apple has around 7.22% of the desktop OS market. Not great considering that Windows 10 picked up the equivalent of the entire OSX install base in around 8-10 weeks with 110 million devices now running Win 10. Only 8 million are corporate, which leave 102 million on consumer devices.
Regardless of anyone’s fanboy status Apples iPad, MBA (by Surface and Surface Pro), 13′ MBP (by Surface Book) are coming under pressure. TheiPad Pro is already obsolete although it hasn’t yet been released.
If Microsoft is successful with these new products, and based on the $3.5Bn per year they make on Surface Pro 3, they likely will be. The next target will be the 15′ MBP and a death spiral of the 7.22% desktop market share.
To make matters worse, Microsoft will likely pick up a lot more developers with their ‘Universal Apps’ range. If I were a developer, I would be going for the >90% share of the market not the <8% of the market.
The real crunch on phones will be if Microsoft and Google form an unholy alliance and allow Android apps to be loaded on to Windows Phone, which is technically possible and people are currently sideloading.
Hopefully Apple will pickup its act and innovate, provide better value-for-money, or even just blatantly copy. But one thing is for sure. The Microsoft has put Apple on notice and while I currently have a foot in either camp my next few thousand dollars will be spent on high-end Microsoft products this year.
Sorry Ubuntu 15.04 is way better than windows 10 Pro….
110 million people in the first 10 weeks disagree with your statement…. just sayin!