FollowTech analysts are not the only ones who have heavily criticized Surface RTs. The lackluster sales of the Surface RT tablets have made Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admit that manufacturing Surface RT tablets was a mistake.
Ballmer revealed that the company made a loss of $900 million because of the poor sales since the time it was brought out in the market in October 2012. He went to say that the manufactured more tablets than they could sell. However, Ballmer added that they are already working on the next generation version of Surface RT tablet.
The price of the Surface RT tablets has been reduced by 30 percent globally. The reason why such a price cut was introduced was to improve the sales of the Windows powered Surface RT tablets.
By dividing $900 million losses by $150 which is price deduction amount on each unit, we can understand that Microsoft has failed to sell nearly 6 million Surface RT tablets. Ballmer also added that Windows devices are not performing well in the market. Microsoft is unable to sell as many Windows powered tablets, PCs and smartphones as they want to.
The Surface RT tablet and laptop did manage to receive positive reviews from well-known reviewing sites. However, these devices failed to find a niche customer group. The Surface RT tablets were advertised as iPad killer.
Ballmer did not reveal anything about the next generation Surface devices but he did reveal that the company is working towards bringing about incremental improvements. It is believed that the Surface tablets will be supplied with Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU. Talking about the next gen Surface devices, Ballmer said that the devices have received positive reviews by the internal team.
The collaboration of Microsoft and Nokia to roll out Windows Phone powered smartphones in the market also has not managed to achieve good results. Currently, it ranks behind Android, iOS, and BlackBerry OS. Even though companies apart from Nokia such as Samsung and HTC have offered Windows Phone device but they have never managed to attract consumers.
Ballmer also spoke about the applications market of Windows Phone. He cited the significance of Instagram and said that in the app market there are over 900,000 camera apps. It is interesting to know that the Instagram app is yet not available for Windows Phone.
Now, Ballmer wishes to focus on manufacturing better Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 devices to make the devices available to the consumers for the holiday season.
Many have criticized Microsoft’s venturing into hardware sector by manufacturing Surface devices. Tech analysts felt that Microsoft should have focused more on making its software better rather than manufacturing hardware. Also, the cost of the Surface devices was not cheap. Hence, it did not manage to achieve good sales. That is the reason why Microsoft reduced the price of Surface devices. Despite reducing the price, the sales of the Surface products could not be resurrected.
Like Microsoft, even we hope that the next gen Surface tablets would put the company on the right track. By releasing the products at competitive price, they will be able to compete with market giants like Samsung and Apple.
