30 replies to this topic

[spudtrooper]

You can't watch a single channel, open many magazines, listen to many radio stations or surf many websites without seeing an advertisement for the Surface. If Microsoft "only" planned on shipping 1-3 million this year, isn't this advertising a little crazy for those numbers?

I think the market severely underestimated Microsoft's supply chain & distribution as well as means to make windows 8 & surface penetrate the market and i'm curious if MS is just going balls out to totally crush market expectations for next period.

watching closely Bing may even prove to be profitable as their growth of Azure and wrapping their own services around it may finally get them over that cost hump that has been hurting them for ages.

[tsupersonic]

Maybe it will sell well, or maybe it won't. Let's just wait for numbers, rather than speculate eh?

[spudtrooper]

tsupersonic, on 07 November 2012 - 15:59, said:

Maybe it will sell well, or maybe it won't. Let's just wait for numbers, rather than speculate eh?

I can't help but speculate when its overwhelming how balls to the wall they have gone to push this product!

[LogicalApex]

Well pushing Surface is also a major push for Windows 8 and Windows 8 Tablet (RT) so you can expect them to push the device well in excess of their supply. We won't know what the real numbers are like until we get them. There are a lot of things that need to be vetted about any sales figures. Such as:

How many have sold?

How many have been returned?

What is the defect rate?

Is the Surface cannibalizing tablets from other OEMs?

etc..

We will get all of these details with Q4 2012 and Q1 2013 numbers.

[ahhell]

LogicalApex, on 07 November 2012 - 16:11, said:

Well pushing Surface is also a major push for Windows 8 and Windows 8 Tablet (RT) so you can expect them to push the device well in excess of their supply. We won't know what the real numbers are like until we get them. There are a lot of things that need to be vetted about any sales figures. Such as:

How many have sold?

How many have been returned?

What is the defect rate?

Is the Surface cannibalizing tablets from other OEMs?

etc..

We will get all of these details with Q4 2012 and Q1 2013 numbers.

You really can't stop yourself from commenting in every Surface thread, can you?

[+Majesticmerc]

You have to remember that coming into the tablet market, Microsoft are now the outsider. This is a landscape dominated by iOS and Android, so Microsoft are pushing surface...

(a) to try and push Microsoft products into the mainstream of the tablet market, and...
(b) use Surface to push the Metro/Modern UI/Whatever interface, which has been controversially received to say the least.

Surface means much more to Microsoft than pure sales, they're pushing their OS reboot and image as a "cool guy" in the wake of ever growing competition from the likes of Apple, and Google as well.

[LogicalApex]

ahhell, on 07 November 2012 - 16:22, said:

You really can't stop yourself from commenting in every Surface thread, can you?

They seem to be what is filling up my Quick Spy so I end up reading a fair bit of them and then offering a comment every so often. If my contributions have been worthless and serving only to devalue the discussion I'll reduce my participation in Surface related threads. I'm content with just reading threads and refraining from jumping into them.

I'll be sure to try to post only when there is considerable value to add to Surface threads going forward.

[HawkMan]

LogicalApex, on 07 November 2012 - 16:11, said:

Is the Surface cannibalizing tablets from other OEMs?

How can it cannibalize something that doesn't exist ?

[LogicalApex]

HawkMan, on 07 November 2012 - 16:59, said:

How can it cannibalize something that doesn't exist ?

Dell is selling Windows 8 RT tablets. I'm sure more will jump on with it between now and the end of Q1 2013...

It will be interesting to see what affect the Surface will have on these OEMs. It might have a negligible impact or it might not. The numbers will be the only way to know.

[Jason Stillion]

Advertising =/= Sales
Ex. Microsoft's Kin

Not saying Surface is doing as poor as the Kin however.

[.Neo]

ahhell, on 07 November 2012 - 16:22, said:

You really can't stop yourself from commenting in every Surface thread, can you?

Instead of constantly calling out others maybe you can try to actually participate in the conversation once in a while.

[spudtrooper]

Jason Stillion, on 07 November 2012 - 17:07, said:

Advertising =/= Sales
Ex. Microsoft's Kin

Not saying Surface is doing as poor as the Kin however.

Why bring this crap up? The kin wasn't even advertised, it was aborted at birth and written off and was a tail end product that evolved from their purchase of another company.

[FMH]

Judging by the lines and interest, I would say it is selling pretty well.

And that may in turn rejuvenate the Windows Phone ecosystem.

[.Neo]

spudtrooper, on 07 November 2012 - 15:57, said:

You can't watch a single channel, open many magazines, listen to many radio stations or surf many websites without seeing an advertisement for the Surface. If Microsoft "only" planned on shipping 1-3 million this year, isn't this advertising a little crazy for those numbers?

I think you have to look at things beyond the scope of Surface alone. Every Surface commercial is also publicity for Windows and the company as a whole.

[spudtrooper]

.Neo, on 07 November 2012 - 17:26, said:

I think you have to look at things beyond the scope of Surface alone. It's also a great way to generate awareness about Windows 8 and Microsoft's new identity.

Oh, I fully expect that there is a symbiotic relationship between advertising surface and getting windows 8 market share, no doubt. I just think the focus on Surface so much shows that there may be more to the surface equation than we were led on to believe