Thursday, November 29, 2012

Surface, The Microsoft Tablet-PC: Fail?

Updates

December 11, 2012: update on the Surface --

“The public reaction to Surface has been exciting to see. We’ve increased production and are expanding the ways in which customers can interact with, experience and purchase Surface,” Microsoft Surface general manager Panos Panay said in a news release.
All well and good. Unless you read this piece from Dealnews, which cited a report that Surface sales are well below expectations: 
"According to estimates from Boston-based brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton, Microsoft is on track to sell between 500,000 to 600,000 Surface RT tablets in the December quarter — far below its expected sales of 2 to 3 million."
The Dealnews story noted that part of the problem might be the limited availability of the Surface, which it seems Microsoft is on its way to addressing with its Tuesday announcement. 
The other issue remains price, according to Dealnews: "And at a time when $199 mainstream tablets are becoming the norm, the Surface RT's high $499 price tag is undoubtedly hurting it."
November 30, 2012: PC or Apple in the corporate world?
November 30, 2012: from a comment at MacRumors.com regarding memory for the Surface:
If it turns out that the Pro starts at 64gb cause that full version of Windows needs 32gb plus the 16gb that Metro needs ...
November 30, 2012: Windows 8 gets a slow start, WSJ. 
While the bulk of the holiday selling season is still ahead, "clearly, Windows 8 did not prove to be the impetus for a sales turnaround some had hoped for," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD.
November 30, 2012:  The major selling point for the tablet: a) light, compact; b) long battery life. Additional plus: few slots; folks were being weaned from attaching printers, fax machines, hard drives, etc., to their mobile device. The bed may not be the #1 place where one finds an iPad, but it's high on the list. The Surface Pro: a) clunky; b) short battery life; c) being seen more as a computer than a tablet. So, we're moving back to a laptop?  People see it as something for the workplace, not for fun. The iPad is fun.


November 30, 2012: the bad news for Microsoft Surface continues. From MacRumors.com:
The RT version of the Surface officially has an eight hour battery life with some testers finding slightly longer running times, implying that the Surface Pro will feature a battery life of roughly four-and-a-half hours, less than most laptops. This low battery life information comes at a time when Microsoft is seeing poor sales of the Surface RT. A report on Black Friday from Piper Jaffray revealed that the brick and mortar Microsoft stores experienced low Surface sales in comparison to iPad sales at the Apple Store.
There was 47% less foot traffic at the Microsoft (MSFT) outlet than the Apple (AAPL) store. Shoppers bought 17.2 items per hour at the Apple Store and only 3.5 items per hour at the Microsoft Store. All but two of the Microsoft purchases were X-Box games. Shoppers at the Apple Store bought an average of 11 iPads per hour. Despite heavy TV, print and billboard advertising for the new Microsoft Surface tablet, not one was sold sold during the two hours Piper Jaffray spent monitoring that store. Doesn’t bode well for Microsoft’s answer to the iPad.
Original Post

Perhaps it's too early to tell, but from MacRumors.com:
A recent report from Digitimes indicates that Microsoft has reduced its tablet orders and may consider lowering the price of the Surface RT.
The upstream supply chain of Microsoft’s Surface RT has recently seen the tablet’s orders reduced by half, and with other Windows RT-based tablet orders also seeing weak performance, sources from the upstream supply chain believe the new operating system may not perform as well as expected in the market. Microsoft originally expected to ship four million Surface RT devices by the end of 2012, but has recently reduced the orders by half to only two million units. The sources also noted that Microsoft may consider reducing its Surface Pro price to attract more consumers; however, such a decision may put the already awkward relationship between the software giant and notebook vendors in an even worse situation.
The Surface RT is currently available from Microsoft for $499 for the entry level 32GB tablet. 
The Surface Pro will soon be released also; comparing the two. 

By the way, does anyone know what "RT" stands for in Surface RT? I did not and I follow this stuff fairly closely. But here's the answer:
With the launch of the Microsoft Surface, the first computer the company has ever made, comes the launch of the newest flavor of its Windows 8 operating system, Windows RT. And as shoppers eye up the impressive-but-complicated new product, one question is likely to be asked thousands of times in the coming weeks: what does “RT” mean?
Short answer: Nothing, officially. 
Longer answer: Something, kind of.
In Windows 8, software developers wanting to build programs for the system use a set of tools known as Windows Runtime, abbreviated to WinRT (this is, remember, not the same thing as Windows RT). WinRT lets developers create software that can run both on traditional computers that use the kind of processors made by Intel and AMD — basically all the laptops and desktops in the world today — as well as on devices running on chips based on a different framework, ARM, which are common in mobile phones and tablet computers.
Fail? Go to the links. At MacRumors (the first link above), be sure to read the comments.

Oh, by the way, that linked article comparing the Surface RT with Surface Pro fails to mention that the battery life of the Surface Pro is about four, maybe five hours. Compare that with ten hours for the Surface RT and at least ten hours for the Apple iPad. 
Posted by at

Remember That Rumor About A Whiting Buyout?

Link here to ZeroHedge -- a huge thank you to "anon 1" for finding this.

This is the WSJ story.

MDW noted it (back on September 13/14, 2012).
Posted by at

Another About Ready To Bite The Dust? Fisker Idles Production

Link here to Reuters.
Fisker Automotive Inc said on Thursday that it has temporarily idled production of its Karma plug-in hybrid after its lithium-ion battery supplier A123 Systems Inc cut its output.
A123, which is the sole battery supplier for the Karma, slowed production after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October, Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher said.
Fisker has enough lithium-ion batteries on hand in case an owner needs a replacement, Ormisher said. The company expects to have clarity on its battery inventory after December 6, when an auction to sell A123 is scheduled.
How many replacement batteries would one owner need?
Posted by at
Labels:

This Is Absolutely Not About The Bakken

Updates

December 18, 2012: by the way, about that Antarctic ice melting in the original post. Breaking news;
In an interesting twist on the issue, British researchers last year [undated] published an article in the peer reviewed scientific journal Nature showing how volcanic activity may be contributing to the melting of ice caps in Antarctica—but not because of any emissions, natural or man-made, per se. Instead, scientists Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey believe that volcanoes underneath Antarctica may be melting the continent’s ice sheets from below.
And so it goes. Something tells me this won't be added to Al's PowerPoint presentation.


November 30, 2012: wow, this very same story was picked up by WSJ. And placed on page 3 of the first section as the only story .

This is quite amazing. Last night I posted the "original post" below and came up with a figure of 0.47 inches which I rounded one-half inch (see below -- over 20 years the oceans have risen exactly 0.47 inches). Smack dab in the middle of this WSJ story is a graph -- and there it is: 12 millimeters (0.47 inches). I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E.

Again, buried near the end of the article:
The latest findings show that the rate of ice loss in Greenland has increased almost fivefold since the mid-1990s, while Antarctica overall has been losing relatively small amounts of ice at a more or less constant rate.
"Antarctica is so cold that even if warming occurs it won't melt" at the rate seen in Greenland, said Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and a co-author of the new paper.
One tricky question is whether the overall accelerated melting of the ice sheets can be linked to man-made climate change.
The shrinkage of the permanent ice sheets can't entirely be explained by any of the decades-long or century-long natural shifts in climate cycles, according to Prof. Shepherd. 
And remember: the Antarctic accounts for 90% of the earth's frozen water. 

So bottom line:
  • 90% of earth's frozen water is in Antarctic and that ain't gonna melt
  • scientists agree: tricky question -- whether accelerated melting up north is anthropogenic
  • scientists agree: the shrinkage of ice sheets cannot be entirely explained by any of the natural shift if climate cycles
  • the polar bears are thriving
  • the north polar ice cap is melting just in time for oil companies to start drilling
  • a northwest passage to the Orient may yet appear
  • the WSJ and I come to the same conclusion: in the last 20 years, the oceans have risen 0.47 inch if one trusts the data; it could be worse. It could be 0.49 inch

Original Post
From the LA Times:
The loss of ice covering Greenland and Antarctica has accelerated over the last 20 years,...
The study, published Thursday by the journal Science, comes weeks after Hurricane Sandy’s destruction of coastal communities in New York and New Jersey starkly highlighted the risks posed by sea level rise, especially during storm surges. [We're talking 12 millimeters here -- see below -- or one-half inch.]
Sea level has risen an average of 3 millimeters a year since 1992, but the effect is cumulative and accelerating, Abraham said.
Since 1800 A.D., or so, the oceans have risen 8 inches, according to the linked article. [Don't ask me to compare inches and millimeters; I'm not sure why the spokesman mixed inches and millimeters. Let's just stick with one or the other.]

Ice sheet melting accounts for 20% of ocean level rise since 1992.

The oceans have risen an average of 3 millimeters / year since 1992. That's from the linked article. Three millimeters.

 Twenty percent of 3 mm --> 0.6 mm.

Some years ago, I put a popsicle stick in the sand at Cabrillo Beach, San Pedro, California, to measure the rising ocean. I marked the stick in one (1) millimeter hash marks. Unfortunately, I used water-soluble ink. My experiment gone awry. But I digress.

0.6 mm/year. Reproducible? Hardly. Statistically significant? Unlikely.

0.6 mm / year. But this is the scary part, from the linked article:
“Most people think they don’t have to worry about it, because it’s just a few millimeters,” he said. “But every inch we get makes a storm surge worse.”
Look at Hurricane Sandy. 

By the way, the year "1992" was picked for a very good reason. That was the year Al Gore was named Bill Clinton's running mate; by that time he had already warned us of the global warming disaster awaiting us. I find it incredible that the ocean started rising that same year. And to think that in 1992 the oceans were at their pre-ordained, perfect, level, as set by the Intelligent Designer.

What frustrates me is that "we" had 20 years to prepare for Hurricane Sandy. Just having generators on top of high-rise buildings instead of in basements would have been a start. And pre-positioning FEMA trailers a bit more inland.
Posted by at

Wells Coming Off Confidential List Friday; Almost 30K In First Month -- Hess Nelson in Hawkeye

RBN Energy: good year for the barges. This should be interesting.

Active rigs: 182

Wells coming off the confidential list:
  • 22068, 567, Liberty Resources, Sylte 156-101-15-22-1H, Tyrone, t6/12; cum 49K 9/12;
  • 22397, 149, Hess, EN-Dakota S-155-94-211609H-5, Manitou, t10/12; cum --
  • 22754, 2,324, BR, Iron Horse 31-2TFH, Union Center, t11/12; cum --
  • 22982, 868, Hess, HA-Nelson A-152-95-3427H-2, Hawkeye, t9/12; cum 29K 9/12;
Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)