Why would anyone buy a Windows Restricted Tablet? oh yeah restricted apple.
Microsoft can't even shift Windows 8 slabs in the middle of a tablet frenzy
Microsoft can't tap into the fast-growing tablet market, according to new figures that reveal lacklustre sales of Surface RT and other Windows 8 slabs. Canalys figures for Q4 show a 12 per cent growth in the worldwide PC market, fuelled by a 75 per cent rise in tab shipments to 46.2 million units. Notebooks sales were flat (58 …
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Thursday 7th February 2013 16:53 GMT ScarletVarlet
Re: Instant reaction
Not so much keeping them in their pockets as pulling them out for Apple or Samsung.
The only reason I can think of wanting a Windows tablet is to run my old programs, none of which are tablet oriented (ha!) so I'll need that keyboard and mouse (whoops, now it's not really a tablet anymore!)
Many people bought a PC to do email, social, read, play, without any genuine need for Windows, just the brower or software which ran in it. Now apps abount for tablets along with all new games, etc. Why by Windows brand if you never really needed it and have nothing tying you to it now?
Tough sledding for Microsoft, they do not understand their users after decades of telling them they knew what was good for them.
Humble pie a la mode for Microsoft.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 13:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
They were warned.
I'm an MS guy, but I have never forgiven them for the Ribbon, so I sure as hell was never, never, never going to buy an operating system with the same problems in the UI.
It was said a million times, "We hate stupid little icons." "We multitask." etc.
Microsoft's response? Contempt.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 13:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: They were warned.
Couldnt agree more!
MS's UI design teams lost the plot long ago and have been getting it wrong ever since. Infact its almost like they've had a chip on their shoulder about usability since MS Bob. The list of errors is long, but Ribbon is top of the list, followed by Metro on the desktop / server OS, black and white visual studio.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 15:18 GMT Danny 14
Re: They were warned.
To be fair, windows 8 works well on a tablet. It is unbearable on a desktop loaded with apps and complete hell on earth with a trackpad. The main problem with RT (or surface when it arrives) is sheer cost. A tablet is a tool for a job (in my eyes) and there are far cheaper alternatives.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 13:19 GMT Neil Barnes
Contempt!
Our chief weapon is contempt!
Contempt, and an inability to listen to the customer!
Er, our two chief weapons are contempt, an inability to listen to the customer, and knowing best!
Er, our three chief weapons are contempt, an inability to listen to the customer, knowing best, and refusing to sell the OS the customer wants!
MS hurries out and comes in again.
Among our chief weapons are...
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Thursday 7th February 2013 14:40 GMT Neil Barnes
Re: Contempt!
@JDX - by all means offer new products; but to bet the company on it? A little tick box on the web page when you buy a new computer offering the choice of what the user is used to or something new will tell them whether people want it or not... restricting new computers to only this choice that it seems few want is not the way to make friends and influence people.
Bold moves, yes; only bold moves, no. As you said - it has to be *right*.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 15:22 GMT JDX
Re: Contempt!
Jobs rebuilt Apple based deciding what people should have, listening to nobody even other Apple people.
But of course, he also pretty much ran it into the ground by deciding what people wanted.
I'd rather MS made bold moves and got it wrong.. we can always leave MS products... than that everyone sat there doing nothing.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 17:38 GMT Daniel B.
Re: Contempt! @JDX and Jobs
Jobs rebuilt Apple deciding for users, but he actually knew that what he was pushing would be accepted. And he had his Reality Distortion Field to pull it off.
MS is copying Apple yet again, but this time they're pushing something that they KNOW nobody wants, their market studies point elsewhere but still they push it trying to pull a Jobs sans RDF. This is what happens.
At this point, defending MS is as bad as Eadon's MS trashing, if not worse.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 13:23 GMT Dan 55
Since MS didn't get to tablets first people didn't expect or want tablets to be Windows compatible. Unfortunately MS butchered their desktop OS so they could sell expensive tablets aimed at a non-existent market just because they carry the Windows name, but the funny thing is that Windows RT tablets aren't Windows compatible either so aren't worth the extra.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 15:14 GMT ScottME
MS can't win
MS did actually make quite a number of early attempts at tablets - stylus based, keyboardless PCs & the like. They were of course too heavy, too restricted in what they could do, and the keyboard/mouse oriented user interface didn't really work too well without either.
Now in the Surface they have made a device that's light and portable, has a decent touch-screen user interface, and people won't buy it because it's largely incompatible with the non-tablet Microsoft systems that they have become habituated to.
They are essentially victims of their own earlier successes, having themselves sown and nurtured the seeds of their eventual destruction. I don't say any of this out of sympathy - I have none for them, and I hope the company continues to decline.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 13:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Windows 8 problems are many
But the fact it dumbs your PC down from a all singing all dancing productivity tool into a simple media consumption device is the biggest.
Windows Phone problems are many, but the biggest problem is lack of apps, and the fact it's Microsoft.
Windows Surface problems are many, but to try and single one out, "It's not Apple or Android", and has no apps.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 13:54 GMT Smart_Teacher_Girl
I wonder why Microsoft can't sell an awful, poorly designed, poorly thought out OS like Windows 8. You think people would be HAPPY to have to sit and figure out the crude 1980s style "tile" interface. Study how to use a "new" OS that they have already learned... and have been working with every day for 10 years. Who would have thought that people wouldn't like all that "new" fun at work.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 18:32 GMT David Hicks
Re: "Customers played a wait-and-see game"
'xactly what I thought when I read that.
Customers (well potential customers) either didn't know or didn't care. The phrasing in the article implies a hoard of people just waiting to see if MS did good or released cheap enough. I can't imagine this was the case at all.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 14:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Give then to America
It's been proven time and time again, Microsoft can sell any old tat over there, and trailerpark hicks will queue up at Walmart to get their hands on it.
Bundle it with a Britney Spears CD or something... Worked for Xbox.... Infact they even managed to get the idiots to pay a monthly subscription for the privilege of using it (when it worked).
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Thursday 7th February 2013 17:59 GMT asdf
Re: Give then to America
>It's been proven time and time again, Microsoft can sell any old tat over there, and trailerpark hicks will queue up at Walmart to get their hands on it.
That is also why Microsoft bribed Nokia because they thought any crooked teeth cider drinking limey would pretend to be all posh on high street buying their fancy Nokia without paying attention to what they are buying. Would have worked too had they gotten the phones out a year earlier.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 15:26 GMT kiwi8mail
Re: Telling the customer what they really want...
I'd hate to be accused of invoking Godwin's law or anything... but was this the same Henry Ford who sympathized with Hitler, and who was a recipant of Nazi Germany's Grand Cross of the German Eagle?
But apart from that, no, I can't abide Windows 8 myself...
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Thursday 7th February 2013 16:46 GMT Glenn Amspaugh
Re: Telling the customer what they really want...
The same Henry Ford who raised worker wages and instituted car loans so his workers could buy his vehicles. Later, when workers tried to organize, he had machine gun emplacements at his plants and home and several workers were shot and killed by local police and Ford security when a march occurred.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 15:16 GMT PaulNib68
More Denial
""Windows 8 launched late in the year and was a massive departure from the existing operating systems, so consumers played a wait-and-see game," said Tim Coulling, senior analyst at Canalys"
Why is there so much refusal to admit the obvious on the part of so many "analysts" and tech columns? Windows8 is hated, it's that simple. A couple months back we were seeing articles lamenting MS's lackluster PC sales and efforts by medial shills to pass off the weakness as due to Tablets and mobile eating away at consumer preferences and spending choices. Now we are seeing mobile devices with WIN8 doing poorly as well, and whaddaya know, more apologetics that ignore the obvious.
I have read numerous comment sections on almost any coverage of WIN8, and one thing is almost always glaringly clear, the majority of opinion is negative. In many cases, severely so. The most commonly cited issues being the horrible new UI and "mystery" navigation along with a complete lack of concern for user preferences. I bought a Win8 laptop, HUGE mistake, and although I am also looking for a new PC, will not do so until I can find one with WIn7.
It is very simpe. WIndows 8 is a failure. Thus, time for MS to learn from the mistake and move on.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 16:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Still it can only go downhill from here.
Now they have locked 45m or so users into Xbox Live, they can pull the used game rug from under them for next-gen.. I saw they were getting idiotic gamers to sign up for slightly discounted 12 month subscriptions recently...... (we all know why, 12 months of non-defection to PS3).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/Xbox/9855438/Microsofts-Xbox-720-to-block-second-hand-gaming.html
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Friday 8th February 2013 13:34 GMT CyberCod
It all makes complete sense
If you consider how many MS employees HATE that loudmouth Ballmer, perhaps they're trying to deep-six the company temporarily so that he'll get replaced.
The brand is powerful enough to bounce back, after he's gone.
think about it.
Once Ballmer is gone, I think MS will go through a renaissance-like period where they dominate again.
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Saturday 9th February 2013 00:42 GMT kb
The only reason the netbook is dead
is that MSFT killed it. The whole point of the netbook was a small and CHEAP Internet, media, and basic office device, and when first released the OEMs could get WinPX Home for $15 a pop. Then MSFT went to $35 for 7 Starter, $50 for Win 7 Home, and they just cut all the chances for the OEMs to make a cent right out. When I bought my Win 7 AMD netbook it was $350 with Win 7 HP X64 and 4GB of RAM, by the time the last Win 8 netbooks rolled off the shelves the price had already reached $500 USD.
I think in the coming months you'll see more and more OEMs go to Google's Android and ChromeOS as MSFT has decided they are a "premium" brand and expect the OEMs to only sell premium units. Ask the OEMs with warehouses full of ulrabooks how well that worked in a dead economy MSFT, of course your price for SurfaceRT just shows you still don't get it.
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Saturday 9th February 2013 04:15 GMT Levente Szileszky
The R(e)T(arded) Edition was DoA but even Pro is being butchered...
...for its launch price: $1000-1200?
=O
The classic case of "Are you f'n kidding me?"
While R(e)T(arded) Edition was stilborn due to its R(e)T(arded) feature limitations, its laguhably high price tag only compounded the death certificate, this perpetually about-to-be-launched Surface Pro supposed to cure all the problems...
...except it comes at a price that made everyone thinking "just WTF ARE Ballmer et all SMOKING THERE?"
Seriously, it's just sheer, utter incompetence, at its worst. Ballmer et al MUST GO, period.