So, Just How Well Is Microsoft's Surface Tablet-Laptop Computer Doing? And Then An Incredible Prediction

Updates

All those folks who just bought/upgraded to Windows 8, will not get to spend more money upgrading to Windows Blue because Windows 8 is too difficult to figure out. Microsoft might do well to offer the upgrade free (LOL) to anyone who had Windows 8. 

May 8, 2013: MarketWatch makes it official. Windows 8. Fail.  Microsoft's head of marketing and finance for Windows thinks of it as Windows 8+. All it does is add the "Start" button. LOL.

Later, 3:00 pm: MarketWatch is more blunt: Microsoft admits failure on Windows 8.

Microsoft Corp. MSFT admits the failure of its Windows 8 operating system and is preparing to change key elements this year, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The tech firm's head of marketing and finance, Tami Reller, said in an interview with the newspaper that "key aspects" of the operating system will be changed when Microsoft reveals an updated version of the operating system later this year. Analysts compared the U-turn to Coca-Cola Co.'s New Coke fiasco almost 30 years ago, the report said. Windows 8 was launched in October last year and was called a "bet-the-company" move, seen as a move to compete with Apple's iPad success.

Later, 10:13 am: mid-morning in this upscale Starbucks location; four people on electronic device (not counting cell phones). Two on MacBook Pros; one on an Apple iPad (typing by the way on the keyboard/dock); and, one using a net-top PC. 

Later, 9:39 am: this gets better and better. Just after posting the update below, I then went to CNBC to see how the market was doing. This was the lead story: after bumpy start, Microsoft is rethinking Windows 8.

Windows Blue, the code name for an update to the Microsoft’s flagship operating system, sums up the current melancholy in the PC business pretty well, though Microsoft didn’t intend it that way.
PC shipments are slumping and the declines in the industry have gotten worse, not better, since a major overhaul of Microsoft’s operating system, Windows 8, came out last fall. If it were possible for PCs to sing, there’s little doubt they would be singing the blues.

Microsoft’s basic vision for Windows 8 has not changed — an operating system flexible enough to run on traditional PCs, tablets and everything in between — but the company is for the first time confirming that it is making changes to the software to address some of the problems people have when using it.

In a recent interview at Microsoft’s headquarters, Tami Reller, the chief marketing officer and chief financial officer of the Windows division, revealed that Windows Blue will be released this calendar year and will include modifications that make the software easier to learn, especially for people running it on computers without touch screens.

“The learning curve is real and needs to be addressed,” Ms. Reller said.

Later, 9:29 am: this is incredible. I had just posted the note below when I then went to The Drudge Report to see what was new. Buried down the left side of the page, a link to this article in The (London) Guardian: Bill Gates predicts iPad and Android users will switch to PC tablets.
LOL. 

I've always felt Bill Gates was out of touch. The lack of a ... I won't go there.....

But this most incredible:

Users of iPad and Android tablets might not have noticed, but a lot of them are "frustrated" because they "can't type, they can't create documents, they don't have [Microsoft] Office there". At least according to Bill Gates, who three years ago said of the iPad: "there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say 'Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"

But with total iPad sales since April 2010 already past 141m, and total tablet sales according to IDC at 253m – of which fewer than 2m are the Surface RT or Surface Pro – one might wonder whether he's right.

First of all, iPad users can type. Just like Microsoft's Surface, one can attach the iPad to a keyboard, which, by the way, is much more esthetic than the Surface.

With regard to Microsoft Office: Bill Gates actually has a bigger concern. It looks like 140 million users who don't have Microsoft Office on their tablets, don't care. The concern for Bill Gates is that folks are going to migrate to HTML for documents -- open source. Apps will take care of data bases and spreadsheets. But yes, he is correct. For heavy duty computing and office work, one will use/need a laptop or desktop. But the risk is, for Bill Gates, those 140 million iPad users will switch to Apple laptops/desktops when they upgrade if they are currently using a PC.

If you don't believe me, next time you are in an upscale mall with both an Apple Store and a Microsoft Store, compare the number of people in each. You will be able to count on two hands how many folks are in the Microsoft Store (not counting employees); you will have to estimate the number in the Apple Store. Trust me.

Original Post

Reuters is reporting:

Microsoft has not made much of an impression in the tablet market so far, notching only 900,000 Surface sales in the first quarter, according to IDC, compared with 19.5 million iPad sales and 8.8 million Samsung tablet sales.

I've reviewed the Surface elsewhere. I am biased, so my review cannot be trusted.

However, side-by-side, the casual user will notice the Surface feels clunky, is slow to respond/refresh, and seems more like a laptop than a tablet. There are no moving parts inside the Apple iPad, so it is disconcerting for feel the whirring/vibration when the Surface is operating. What folks won't know when they compare the tablets side-by-side in the shopping mall: the Apple iPad lasts forever (ten hours, at least) on a single charge. The Surface lasts five or six hours? I don't know the real number, but it is considerably less based on other reviews, if I recall correctly.

I have not seen one Surface laptop-tablet in the wild. Across the United States, at Starbucks everywhere, the Apple MacBook Pro is most commonly seen computer, followed by other brands (HP, Dell), and then the Apple iPad. But I have never seen a Surface laptop-tablet in the wild. Only in a Microsoft store. I don't visit Microsoft stores very often, but I have never seen a Surface being bought.