Aaaaaand I was right (I both love and loathe that feeling sometimes). What about? WinRT / Windows 8 and Surface of course - you’ve seen the recent news, did you? If you didn’t, here’s your brief (links are taken from TechCrunch, but all the industry news portals had those in the headlines):
- Microsoft Finally Reveals That No One Wanted The Surface RT - http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/18/microsoft-finally-reveals-that-no-one-wants-the-surface-rt/
- Microsoft Experiences Its Biggest Drop Of The Century As Shares Fall 12 Percent - http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/19/as-shares-fall-12-percent-microsoft-experiences-its-biggest-drop-since-2000/
- Microsoft’s Q4 Earnings Miss With $19.9B In Revenue, EPS Of $0.59, Takes $900M Charge Against Surface RT Inventory Adjustments - http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/18/microsofts-q4-earnings-miss-estimates-with-19-9b-in-revenue-eps-of-0-59-takes-900m-charge-against-surface-rt-inventory-adjustments/
As we all know they’re struggling to fix the situation, but so far no good:
- Microsoft Still Hopes You’ll Buy A Surface RT, Launches New “Surface Vs. iPad” Ad - http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/19/microsoft-still-hopes-youll-buy-a-surface-rt-launches-new-surface-vs-ipad-ad/
As I’ve already written a post regarding my expectations for Windows 8 and Surface (http://gebski.tumblr.com/post/55620901371/heads-will-roll-in-microsoft), I wasn’t planning to repeat myself, but I’ve found a short story on TechCrunch I completely disagree with:
- Touch: Where Microsoft Went Wrong - http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/21/touch-where-microsoft-went-wrong/
Frederic Lardinois claims that the main reason of Surface’s sales failure is Microsoft’s bet on mixing touch screens with standard laptop features. According to him, people don’t care about touch feature (because they don’t like it or they are too confused to use something like that), so there’s no reason to buy Surface.
I’m really, really surprised to read a statement like that. Personally, I know few people who use hybrids (keyboard + touchscreen) and all of them find it a convenient combination (because keyboard + mouse works better in some cases, but there are also some scenarios with touchscreen truly shining). I haven’t seen ANYONE complaining about having both options available in one piece of hardware (as they don’t interfere with each other).
IMHO Microsoft is losing its game (again) mainly due to:
- lack of platform-selling software (unique “exclusive” titles that would make people really want Surface)
- empty Windows Store (technically it’s not empty, just full of useless crap) - Microsoft has failed in attracting the developers
- unrealistic price - AFAIK Surface was aiming to compete with Android tablets, but its price puts it rather in iPad’s category
- insufficient user experience testing - I love (really LOVE) the idea (and looks) of the tiles, but … even if tile usage model seems to make sense and is overall coherent, sometimes it just lacks flexibility and becomes annoying.