Displaying items by tag: Surface

Microsoft is a company with some serious identity issues, at least they have become a company with identity issues. It seems that they do not really know where they want to be or where they belong. Looking back at their history it seems that ever since they built their own gaming console Microsoft has begun to think of themselves as a hardware company more than a software development company. This was probably not the best thing for them to do or to think.

It must be a slow news day over at Apple Insider where they have chosen to present a mistake in an advertisement to try and slam the new Surface 2. You see according to them, the ad shows Excel making a mistake in addition. This somehow translates to Microsoft being bad and Excel being worse than numbers. The author of the piece quickly went about showing how much better Numbers was by using it to calculate the same sum and they came up with the correct number. The logical leap here is something staggering considering it is not a photo of the surface, but a piece of graphic art.

Current Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will see weaker sales of Windows 8 and RT surface on his own salary. By the board's decision, for the fiscal year 2013 he earned smaller bonus than he did in previous years.

Considering that the information about upcoming Microsoft's tablet are leaking like crazy, it was only a matter of time when they will release the date of presentation of new devices. This will happen on September 23rd at an event in New York, and the invitations for the event have already been sent.

When Microsoft first announced their Surface tablet and their intention to become a “devices and services” company the market had a moment of clarity. Here was a situation where a huge partner in the PC business looked to be turning their backs on all of the companies that once supported them. We heard from multiple vendors and all agreed that the move by Microsoft to be secretly developing their own product after viewing all of their submissions was seriously underhanded.  What made things even more disappointing for OEM partners was that Microsoft was also pushing them to sell their cloud services on top of directly competing with them. It was not a happy time for most OEMs, but the majority of them decided to give it a chance and see if Steve Ballmer’s vision would pay off in the end.

For those of us that are either a little older or who simply follow the goings on of Captain James T. Kirk the news that Microsoft might be making a smart watch out of translucent aluminum very interesting. This material was predicted in one of the Star Trek Movies (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). It seems that Microsoft may think that by using exotic materials they can garner the attention of the market. The problem with this logic is that it has not really worked out for them so far. With the Surface (RT) their VaporMag casing did not help in powering sales and might have hurt them as there were manufacturing issues while increased the cost per unit to manufacture them.

Last week it was announced that Microsoft has plans to lower the prices of their tablet Surface RT. Information have now become official, and tablet in the cheapest version now costs $150 less than before.

Anyone remember the Surface?  No, not the sleek little laptop/pad we see all over the news now, I’m talking about the big idea Microsoft had back in 2002, the huge “interactive table” that families were supposed to gather around so share photos and play games on.  If not, you’ve got the idea.  Partnered with Samsung, they produced the SUR40, a 40-inch multitouch display that would set the buyer back $7,500 or more.  Needless to say, we don’t see them in every home today.

According to Blackberry consumers will become tired of tablets in the next five years. Now, considering the massive growth that the tablet market has had over the past 2-3 years that might sound a little off the mark. To be perfectly honest we thought the claim was a little unusual when we first heard it as well. However Blackberry is not the only company that is foreseeing a future after the tablet has run its course. Not that long ago Gabe Newell said that he felt that touch enabled devices like the tablet were a transition device which would have a limited life span. He did not know what the next step in the evolution is but he was pretty convinced that touch was not going to stay the standard for long.

Looks like Microsoft will try to take advantage of the popularity of smaller tablets like many others are doing. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is developing one such device.