Surface tablet pricing still unknown: PC vendors on a lookout

[tereza18gr]

Microsoft isn’t planning to back out in their plans to release their Surface tablet products. This was revealed by Acer chairman JT Wang last Thursday.

But Microsoft in their part is planning to create a price gap between their Surface tablet and devices that their vendors make, in order for the companies supplying the latter to still have business with them.

According to Digitimes, “Microsoft is currently looking for solutions such as creating a price gap to minimize the negative impact on other vendor’s product lineup.”

The pricing for the Surface tablet hasn’t been made public yet. But a low tiered $199 Surface tablet could spell doom for other companies that carry the Windows OS.

Wang said that a Surface tablet that would fetch consumers $499 to $599 could create some leeway for other companies and could have a smaller impact to them.

Microsoft has publicly stated that, “Suggested retail pricing will be announced closer to availability and is expected to be competitive with a comparable ARM tablet or Intel Ultrabook-class PC.”

A lot of individuals are looking forward to the Microsoft Surface tablet. But a lot of companies have been very weary as to the impact this tablet would have to the industry.

http://technewsgadget.net/2012/08/su...-on-a-lookout/

Will Microsoft make it with Surface tablet?

[tubemonkey]

So they're planning to use higher prices to artificially prop up competing products? Utterly stupid!

[teh603]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

So they're planning to use higher prices to artificially prop up competing products? Utterly stupid!

MS is a software company, not a hardware one. The Surface looks like it was mainly intended to kill the traditional desktop PC, not completely lolbliterate hardware manufacturers.

[Sydney's Mom]

I'm so confused now, I think I will just pass. I will stick with my cheap Acer ultrabook, until SOMEONE FIGURES OUT WHAT THE END GAME WILL BE!

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by teh603

The Surface looks like it was mainly intended to kill the traditional desktop PC, not completely lolbliterate hardware manufacturers.

It's called progress and if you can't adapt; you go under.

[StoryEnthusiast]

But Microsoft in their part is planning to create a price gap between their Surface tablet and devices that their vendors make, in order for the companies supplying the latter to still have business with them.

This is bad news. I'll wait before throwing away my laptop.

[speakingtohe]

I like the idea of keyboard with trackpad built into case, but cannot see it replacing a desktop or even a mediocre laptop. Netbook replacement maybe.

Helen

[6charlong]

It seems to me as if Microsoft is too focused on Apple when the real danger is Android. There are some pretty good Android tablets right now that could easily be mated to a keyboard. There are Android apps providing decent office automation in the $0 to $15 range and there are already half a million Android apps ready to go.

Google has an arguably better ecosystem than either Apple or Microsoft, with Google Play, gMail, Google+, Youtube, Google Drive and the Android OS on half the cell phones in use today. They keep winning converts.

Android is prime for this contest and I'm not sure that for many if not most home users the Android manufacturers have the advantage. Microsoft will be hard pressed to beat Android back.

[fjtorres]

Too much nearsighted hype, guys.
There's more to computing than tapping icons on a slate to surf the web and consume content.
And the game that's now starting?
It's not Windows on Tablet Vs Windows on PCs.
It's Windows on Tablet *and* Windows on PCs vs iOS+MacOS vs Android.
(Everybody seems to forget that Window8 on Tablet is the *same* Windows on PCs, portables, desktops, Media Centers, and elsewhere.)

Microsoft's strategy is "What's mine is mine; what's yours is negotiable."
Contrary to the hype, PCs are no more going away than mainframes ever did.
And, for all the whining from the corporate IT guys (who *always* complain about desktop Windows releases) Windows on PCs will continue to be broadly used.

What Windows 8 on Tablets does is bring better hardware and a new front-end GUI to the *existing* windows TabletPCs. (I've been using TabletPCs for ten years. Great and useful stuff for a lot of applications.) TabletPCs have *only* been selling at the rate of a few million a year, mostly because the OEMs have been lazy and sloppy on the hardware side. So, since Acer and Asus and Sony and Dell, etc, haven't held up their side of the partnership on the Tablet side, MS is taking matters into their own hands.

How it plays out will take a while to determine but I would caution against underestimating Microsoft in any OS fight. The moment Win8 ships on Tablets it will *immediately* become the most advanced, most sophisticated, and most powerful OS on any Tablet of any brand. Maybe the market won't value this, maybe it will. But what Apple is working towards--making iOS and MacOS more like each other--and what Google can only dream of--full-feature desktop and enterprise grade apps on android--is where Windows 8 *starts* at.

Ignore that at your peril.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

I'm so confused now, I think I will just pass. I will stick with my cheap Acer ultrabook, until SOMEONE FIGURES OUT WHAT THE END GAME WILL BE!

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It's not Windows on Tablet Vs Windows on PCs.

According to the quotes in the OP, it most certainly is. Else why the pricing worries?

[Edward M. Grant]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

(Everybody seems to forget that Window8 on Tablet is the *same* Windows on PCs, portables, desktops, Media Centers, and elsewhere.)

No-one is forgetting that. You may have missed the millions of complaints about Microsoft pushing a tablet interface onto Windows 8 desktop machines.

First they made the mistake of pushing a desktop UI onto tablets, now they're making precisely the opposite mistake.

[Valkrider]

Originally Posted by teh603

MS is a software company, not a hardware one. The Surface looks like it was mainly intended to kill the traditional desktop PC, not completely lolbliterate hardware manufacturers.

Sorry you are wrong there M$ is a hardware company too. Xbox 360, keyboards, mice, webcams to name but a few.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

It seems to me as if Microsoft is too focused on Apple when the real danger is Android. There are some pretty good Android tablets right now that could easily be mated to a keyboard.

But they aren't selling many.
http://appadvice.com/appnn/2012/08/a...-united-states

In a seven-quarter period starting in 2010 and ending in the middle of this year, Samsung sold 1.4 million units of its Galaxy tablet series in the United States. That earned the company $644 million in revenue.

How did the iPad do in the U.S. during the same time frame? Apple sold 29.7 million units to take in $14.8 billion in revenue. AllThingsD boiled those numbers down pretty concisely:

Put another way, Samsung sold fewer tablets over that entire seven-quarter period than Apple did in its worst quarter. Its revenue over that time period was less than 5 percent of what Apple generated.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

According to the quotes in the OP, it most certainly is. Else why the pricing worries?

Because they fear it will undercut their android sideline and because they intended to keep on shipping substandard Windows tablets at high prices.
It is especially amusing because ACER is one OEM that has never done much to play in the TabletPC market at all, unlike Toshiba and HP. Even Dell took a half-hearted stab at it in living memory.

But ACER is the one to raise the FUD?
No sympathy here.