Not so tough times for Microsoft and Surface

Microsofts not dead yet folks. Where are the Three Amigos when you need them.

.Microsoft has sold 400,000 Surface Pros since launch, according to a Bloomberg report.
That's not a bad start for a very pricey tablet -- starting at $899 -- considering that the Windows 8-based Pro launched only about a month ago.

More at the source

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57574468-75/microsoft-surface-pro-sales-hit-400k-in-a-hurry/

 

[chrisa]

Not certain about the 2bn - have seen it quoted - 1.5 bn is more often suggested.

Of course not all XP users upgraded to 7.

Not relevant to my previous post. Par for the course for you, Bill.

On the available information 8 is selling very badly. The mass market have not gone for it.

MS may well release something that is more palatable.

It will be interesting to see what name they use.

1.6 billion is the number i've heard, but i'm quite sure that also includes laptops.

And you seem to keep missing the point that its not the op sys, but the hardware. People upgrade their op sys when they upgrade their hardware. If things have been working, they don't usually perform interim upgrades of the op sys just for sh*ts and giggles. 'If it aint broke, don't fix it' is an ingrained reflex of PC users and has been for a very long time. 7, for the workstation, will be good for a lot of people for a couple of more years, at the minimum. If they get 8, it will be in going to a Surface Pro, to take their stuff mobile, or something similar. Thats why Microsoft is in that market to begin with.

Now, if some companies get together and jack the speed and storage capacity of a PC far beyond that of mobile, and applications are made to use that... you will start to see people upgrading their PC's. But not before and not until. Marginal upgrades to processing power simply won't cut the mustard. It needs to be gamechanging and provide concrete calculation and storage ability that won't be seen in mobile for a good long while. The Workstation PC has to be the vanguard of computing and push the limits of its form factor if it wants to thrive.. not simply be an overweight, unwieldy version of a mobile device.

 

[SIW2]

There are a number of factors in any sector - and a number of factors in buying decisions.

We are discusing 8 on an 8 forum . Nobody is denying the "good enough" syndrome. It isn't new.

What is new - or current, is the poor sales performance of 8.

You don't think the bad reception of Vista affected sales - you don't think the good reception of 7 affected sales - you don't think the very poor reception of 8 is affecting sales. You don't think the deals - the free upgrades to iphone/lumia/whatever - has an effect, you don't think all the effort Apple put into creating their brand image has affected their sales.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Partially True

And you seem to keep missing the point that its not the op sys, but the hardware. People upgrade their op sys when they upgrade their hardware. If things have been working, they don't usually perform interim upgrades of the op sys just for sh*ts and giggles. 'If it aint broke, don't fix it' is an ingrained reflex of PC users and has been for a very long time. 7, for the workstation, will be good for a lot of people for a couple of more years, at the minimum.

That's only partially true.

Look at the figures.
Desktop PCs less popular than ever

If W7 is running on 450M to 900M PCs, how come PC sales for that period only totally ~90M - 100M?

The only way both figures can be true, is if most W7 users upgraded their OS and NOT their hardware.

 

[chrisa]

And you seem to keep missing the point that its not the op sys, but the hardware. People upgrade their op sys when they upgrade their hardware. If things have been working, they don't usually perform interim upgrades of the op sys just for sh*ts and giggles. 'If it aint broke, don't fix it' is an ingrained reflex of PC users and has been for a very long time. 7, for the workstation, will be good for a lot of people for a couple of more years, at the minimum.

That's only partially true.

Look at the figures.
Desktop PCs less popular than ever

If W7 is running on 450M to 900M PCs, how come PC sales for that period only totally ~90M - 100M?

The only way both figures can be true, is if most W7 users upgraded their OS and NOT their hardware.

Because things hadn't been working with Vista.

Win 7 presented the first absolutely rock-hard stable operating system since XP, and once it got working.. if it aint broke, don't fix it came into play. Either way, MS is making a ton of money off the Surface Pro. So even if it takes a while to fully transition the desktop, what do they care if they can get a foothold in mobile to introduce people to the touch features of Win 8, while keeping their base stable on a mix of 7 and 8? Why would you even care that desktops primarily run Windows 7 and not 8? They're really not *that* much different with the exception of touch being integrated into the UI. Its pretty much only media-driven hype and Apple Fanbois that say that everybody has to adopt a new system in the first 6 months or you suck. Its never worked that way on the PC, its always taken time to move people out of the old, especially so when its not a huge upgrade.

As i've said before, right now the PC's need an exponential boost in their processing and storage capabilities to really make them viable. Even then, if its a daughter-board based card like the Xeon Phi that provides the horsepower, you probably won't have to upgrade the whole system. You'll probably have to commit a PCI-e slot for it, and maybe switch your power supply(allthough if you allready have a decent video card, you may allready have the power hookups). This is if you've built for a traditional mid-tower form factor and haven't bought pre-built crap with no-space cases from say HP, Dell, or whoever.