What Microsoft Won't Say About Surface
Sales figures for its new tablet were perhaps the most conspicuously absent part of the software giant's on-target earnings report after the markets closed on Thursday. Here's why.
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Despite the rise of the phablet and its friends, the battle of the very expensive tablets is very much upon us as Apple announced an $800, 128GB version of its iPad on Tuesday morning — less than two weeks before its enemies at Microsoft will launch a $900, 128GB tablet, the Surface Pro.
Sales figures for its new tablet were perhaps the most conspicuously absent part of the software giant's on-target earnings report after the markets closed on Thursday. Here's why.
The tech turf wars are raging on, and there is one notable giant largely missing from battle, report The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. So Microsoft lost 2012. But what about next year?
The new Microsoft operating system that all the reviewers called confusing isn't exactly winning over consumers either.
Without any organic excitement for today's Surface tablet debut, Microsoft has resorted to faking it.
Just before Microsoft's Surface goes on sale tomorrow, the gadget professionals have spent time with the hybrid computer tablet, and while everyone is certain that it's different from anything out there, including the iPad, no one is sure that's really a good thing.
A little over a week before its event, Microsoft accidently posted on its website (since now taken down) the prices for its new Surface tablets. At $500 for the 32GB model, it will run $100 less than the 32GB iPad 3.
Microsoft has started sending out invitations for an October 25 "Microsoft Surface Reception," where the company will presumably tell us all the details about its tablet that were left out of the initial announcement back in June.
The way in which we got today's information and "information" regarding Microsoft and Apple's respective tablet projects teaches us something about each of these company's attempts to be secretive.
At this week's Google developers conference, which begins today and goes through Friday in San Francisco, the company will for sure release a tablet, but exactly what that tablet will look like is less certain.
Microsoft not only dumped all of its hardware partners before making the Surface tablet, like a boyfriend playing his various squeezes, it first forced them into a race to the bottom, leaving them once it had wrung out every last drop of their value.
Looking to (stealing from?) Apple, Microsoft went for a super-secret approach to its tablet launch and it's still paying off, with the Surface dominating today's tech rumor news.
With its recent product and software announcements and PR moves, all signs point to comeback for Microsoft, but it just hasn't quite gotten there yet.
Following Microsoft's too-secret, ill planned, last minute Surface announcement on Monday, today we have another big Microsoft event, thankfully minus all that contrived hype we got the other day.
Microsoft's super-secret event delivered a gadget that lived up to tech blogger hype -- almost.
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