Microsoft to cut its Surface orders in half (2 millions units instead of 4 millions)

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

This is from a highly positive Surface review:
Within an hour or so I was hitting 80% of my regular typing speed on it, and it's firm enough to be used on a lap without too much loss of accuracy. In other words, Surface reduced his data entry speed 20 percent. And isn't the iPad even worse there?

He's talking about the physical keyboard that comes with the Surface. Since tactile feedback is key in touch typing, of course any virtual onscreen keyboard is going to be abysmal in comparison, iPad included. Which is why, as I said upthread, I carry a BT kb with me when I need to do heavy lifting. I don't know how the Surface keyboard compares (never having tried it), but I'm pretty near full speed on the BT kb.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Skype is doing well.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by kevinp

I don't believe they've sold 40 million licenses to Win8. Says who? Someone from inside Microsoft? Of course they're going to say "we've sold tons, people love it, come get yours!"

Actually, statements like this from publicly held companies are pretty much the most reliable sources available, since lying about things like this leads to pretty stiff prison sentences as well as liability. Unlike a lot of white collar crimes, there are a lot of prosecutions, too.

So if MS says they've sold 40 million licenses, it is almost certainly true. Although the question of who they've sold the licenses to (consumers or OEMs) and of how many licenses were for upgrades as opposed to coming with a new laptop someone bought for christmas are relevant questions not answered by the PR. But you can count on the statement being literally true.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Actually, statements like this from publicly held companies are pretty much the most reliable sources available, since lying about things like this leads to pretty stiff prison sentences as well as liability. Unlike a lot of white collar crimes, there are a lot of prosecutions, too.

So if MS says they've sold 40 million licenses, it is almost certainly true. Although the question of who they've sold the licenses to (consumers or OEMs) and of how many licenses were for upgrades as opposed to coming with a new laptop someone bought for christmas are relevant questions not answered by the PR. But you can count on the statement being literally true.

If they weren't true, that would count as "manipulating the stock price". Apparently the cheap upgrade did get results -- I read a lot of people did upgrade their systems. We upgraded two laptops, I am very pleased with the results.

[JoeD]

It's also possible for companies to have also "sold" X copies to vendors with a clause that they'll buy back unused stock. They get to brag about sales been high regardless of whether they are or not. Not saying MS have done this, just offering the possibility.

Lots of ways to twist statistics without coming close to lying.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by JoeD

It's also possible for companies to have also "sold" X copies to vendors with a clause that they'll buy back unused stock. They get to brag about sales been high regardless of whether they are or not. Not saying MS have done this, just offering the possibility.

Lots of ways to twist statistics without coming close to lying.

Ah but if you read Sam Harris's "Lying" you'll better understand.

[JAcheson]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

Expected by whom, I wonder. Outside of its two core products -- Windows and Office -- the number of successful products MS has ever had rounds off to as nearly zero as no matter.

Microsoft Flight Simulator, and more importantly, Visual Studio. Also, the dev kits for the XBox and 360 were apparently top-notch.

[HarryT]

Also worth remembering that Office is the top-selling Apple Mac software product. Microsoft don't only make money from Windows PCs.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by JAcheson

Microsoft Flight Simulator, and more importantly, Visual Studio. Also, the dev kits for the XBox and 360 were apparently top-notch.

And though it is irrelevant now, let's not forget the one that started it all -

Microsoft Basic!

I used that on CP/M before MSDos existed.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And though it is irrelevant now, let's not forget the one that started it all -

Microsoft Basic!

I used that on CP/M before MSDos existed.

Absolutely. Bill Gates made his first millions by (personally) writing ROM BASIC interpreters for the first generations of home computers.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Absolutely. Bill Gates made his first millions by (personally) writing ROM BASIC interpreters for the first generations of home computers.

Originally Posted by kennyc

And though it is irrelevant now, let's not forget the one that started it all -

Microsoft Basic!

Ahem -- *ALTAIR* Basic, if you don't mind. Gates'/Allen's first BASIC was developed in 1975 for the Altair. It was generalized a year later as BASIC-80 for 8080-based CP/M machines. I've still got my old check register program I wrote in BASIC-80 on my TRS-80, which I later ported to Q-BASIC when I moved to DOS.

And in 1977 Microsoft ported its BASIC to the 6502 and licensed it to some company form Cupertino called -- what was it? oh, yeah -- Apple. At the time Microsoft had a total of six employees. In a grand bit of historical irony it was the phenomenal success of the Apple II which turned Microsoft into a million-dollar company.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

If they weren't true, that would count as "manipulating the stock price". Apparently the cheap upgrade did get results -- I read a lot of people did upgrade their systems. We upgraded two laptops, I am very pleased with the results.

Aaahhh, the old favourite, "anecdotal evidence." Happy for your experience, I can equally quote that a lot of people didn't upgrade their systems. I have had to reinstall 7 and VM'd XP on two friends machines but had no problem trying it out on my iMac... and all of this and the above proves absolutely nothing apart from the fact that we've had differing experiences... just part of the human condition...

[kennyc]

ah....the human condition....ah.... Too many humans, too little condition...

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

And in 1977 Microsoft ported its BASIC to the 6502 and licensed it to some company form Cupertino called -- what was it? oh, yeah -- Apple. At the time Microsoft had a total of six employees. In a grand bit of historical irony it was the phenomenal success of the Apple II which turned Microsoft into a million-dollar company.

You could make a case that it was Apple's stupidity, considering that they already had something called Integer Basic, which had IIRC been developed by Woz. Applesoft, developed by MS, was somehow easier to work with and got Jobs' approval.

Not like it resembles any modern programming language. You can't even manually number your lines anymore.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by teh603

You could make a case that it was Apple's stupidity, considering that they already had something called Integer Basic, which had IIRC been developed by Woz. Applesoft, developed by MS, was somehow easier to work with and got Jobs' approval.

Not like it resembles any modern programming language. You can't even manually number your lines anymore.

As I recall, after licensing it Apple still had to heavily modify it to get it to run on the Apple II.

And yeah, I really hate it when I can't number the lines in my C# code. What was Microsoft thinking?