Quote:
Originally Posted by pilotbob
Typical conspiracy crap. I will never believe that a company would make less units then they can actually sell on purpose.
BOb
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I've seen this ("artificial scarcity") once with one of my clients.
The market of this client basically is shared between 3 global players of about equal size.
One of those 3 did have temporary (3 months) problems with their supply line. The other 2 didn't jump onto that opportunity, but:
a.) They actually did produce for the 3rd one and label the products accordingly.
b.) Limited their own production, so the 3rd somewhat could keep up.
Quote of my client back then:
"What makes more sense long-term? Gaining some market share and bringing more aggression to the business? Or each of us 3 sticking to about 1/3 of the market and not running into any problems?".
Of course, with tablets it's a bit different. More competitors. Way more fluctuations.
Still, I can imagine, from a strategic perspective it makes more sense for Microsoft stating "huge demand" and "shortage of stock" instead of "huge quantities on stock and only limited demand".
After all, Microsoft still has all the other manufacturers in place. If a Windows enthusiast doesn't buy a Microsoft tablet, the Asus, Samsung, Acer or whatever tablet still is loaded with Microsoft software/OS.
So Microsoft doesn't have to aim for market share of their own tablets alone, but for cashflow, image and such as well.
Meaning:
I don't think, they'd actually limit their capacities to generate an artificial hype.
But I can imagine, they produce based on a very conservative forecast. And prefer shortage of their own tablets and one of their partners closing the gap, instead of binding cash, angering their partners even more and gaining not very much.
Given the still relatively low volume, Microsoft won't generate much profits on the tablets anyway. It's certainly way more important, having Windows 8 in place against iOS and Android - on whatever manufacturer's tablet.