$14bn tax hit, Surface Pro screens keep dying, but it's not all good news at Microsoft

The Register ^ | 2/1/18 | Shaun Nichols

[markomalley]

Microsoft Surface Pro 4 owners are up in arms over what they claim is an ongoing epidemic of screen failures blighting their expensive fondleslabs.

Disgruntled punters on the Redmond support forums and the dedicated independent website FlickerGate.com say their tablets are prone to a hardware glitch that causes the display to become blurry or annoyingly flicker, rendering the gear useless. The electronics cockup was first complained about around this time last year, however, the underlying issue doesn't appear to be fixed, and people are to this week upset that their tablets are still going bonkers.

They claim the touchscreens usually go nuts one to two hours after powering up, making the screen all but impossible to read and operate. This usually kicks off after about a year of use, we're told. Here's a video demonstrating the irritating gremlin:

link to video: https://youtu.be/nBYiqHzaMK4

One Surface Pro 4 owner complained on the official support board that the flickering even crops up when no one is interacting with the keyboard or touchscreen.

Over on FlickerGate, netizens allege they have had to have their screens replaced multiple times, only to have the flickering problem return.

"Unfortunately no software fix is available for this problem," the webpage stated. "Some of users were offered replacements as fix by Microsoft but the problem still remains there as users reported on the official forum of MS that they had the same problem with 3,4 consecutive replacements."

El Reg asked Microsoft for comment on the product screw-up, or for pointers on how to correct it, but at the time of publication we have yet to hear back.

Taxing times

Meanwhile, Redmond on Wednesday reported what would have been a solid second quarter of fiscal 2018, were it not for the gaping hole blown in its finances by changes to America's taxation system.

The biz incurred a one-time $13.8bn tax charge for repatriating its profits made overseas back to the US. It had kept the cash abroad to avoid having to pay substantial levies on the money when bringing it back. A US law passed in December, and championed by President Donald Trump, brought that tax rate down, giving Microsoft the green light to transfer home its profits. Apple did similar this month. The tax law also cut corporation tax.

That repatriated moolah will make a small dent in Uncle Sam's $4tr annual budget, and give Redmond a little more cash to splash around in the States. Here's a summary of the three months to December 31, 2017:

• Revenues of $28.9bn were up 12 per cent over Q2 FY2017 and ahead of analyst estimates of $28.38bn.

• Thanks to the tax hit, the IT titan recorded a net loss of $6.3bn. Absent the tax charge, Microsoft said its operating income was $8.7bn, or up 10 per cent from the year-ago figure.

• Non-GAAP earnings per share were $0.96, topping the $0.86 estimates. Though in non-GAAP terms (read: reality) there was a $-0.82 per share loss.

• Cloud revenues of $7.8bn were up 15 per cent year over year, led by Azure revenues that almost doubled over Q2 2017.

• Productivity and Business Processes – the unit that includes Office, Dynamics, and LinkedIn – logged revenues of $9.0bn, a jump of 25 per cent on the year-ago quarter.

• The More Personal Computing category that includes Windows and Xbox grew revenues by two per cent, with OEM revenues up four per cent and gaming up eight per cent.

"This quarter’s results speak to the differentiated value we are delivering to customers across our productivity solutions and as the hybrid cloud provider of choice," offered CEO Satya Nadella. "Our investments in IoT, data, and AI services across cloud and the edge position us to further accelerate growth."

On a conference call with analysts, Nadella added that mitigating the Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws will continue to be a top priority. The Windows giant just had to issue emergency patches to correct Intel's broken microcode fixes for its insecure processors.

Investors weren't happy. Shares in Microsoft were holding steady after the results, trading flat at $95.01. ®

[LouieFisk]

The lesson: Never pay more than a couple hundred bucks for a PC. Avoid toys like the plague.

[Pearls Before Swine]

“Fondleslabs.” From the first line of the article.

I’ll have to remember that one!

[Noumenon]

Refurbs. Best way to go for common workstations.

[Dr. Sivana]

The lesson: Never pay more than a couple hundred bucks for a PC.

If you need features or power, you certainly have to spend more than a couple of hundred dollars. Business class desktops/workstations often come with substantial warranties, and my seven year old Acer Veriton i5 is still chugging fine. I spent more than "a couple of hundred dollars" on it. Heck, I spent that on the 1TB SSD upgrade!

My lesson is tat Microsoft never was a very good hardware company, unless you count mice and keyboards. In the past, when they came out with add-on cards and what not, it never worked out well.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Glad I didn’t get the Surface Pro 4.
My Surface Pro 3 is still going strong.

[LouieFisk]

“If you need features or power, you certainly have to spend more than a couple of hundred dollars.”
—
Specifically, what are talking about re:features, power?

[LouieFisk]

“Refurbs. Best way to go for common workstations.”
—
And for home & general use PCs. Yup.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

My surface pro 3 is the best. Glad i did not upgrade yet.

[Riflema]

So, at 21% tax rate, this means they repatriated approx USD 66.66B. Nice. Keep the winning coming!

[steveyp]

2y Surf Pro 4 owner. Was also a Windows Phone Owner. Twice.

Surf Pro 4 developed the flicker. I put up with it for 4 months.

Traded it in and bought a MacBook Air. I have finally succumbed to Apple, but Microsoft’s total disregard for the screen flicker issue totally angered me.

I hated Mac. I bought a Mac Mini for my wife in 2011. I bought it so I could tell her, no I can’t help with your computer problems because I don’t understand Macs. I put a solid state hard drive in that thing and it is still performing awesomely. In 2018. A computer I bought in 2011. I bought my wife a MacBook Pro. She’s never asked me for help to solve a problem. Never.

I’m sold. I’m beaten. I have the Air and a IPhone SE (newer one). Like the form factor at 4”, it has the 6 guts. Performs great. Integrates with my stuff.

F Microsoft. I run 365 on the Mac, and that’s all I wanted.

[minnesota_bound]

The company I am at bought Surface Pros for the managers and above. The #1 call is the wireless not working.
The other is how to plug a network cable in as Microsoft did not include a normal port for one so you have to lug around a ‘dongle’ “Where is my dongle!”

Other issues are the docking station not working causing the Surface Pro to freeze or not boot up. Take the Surface Pro out of the docking station and it works. Of course the wireless doesn’t but hey most of it is working...... and it only cost a fortune to buy and cannot be repaired as it is glued together.

[Gene Eric]

Ditto

[Swordmaker]

Pingelations running up and down my leg for this one . . , ;^)

[Dr. Sivana]

specifically, what are talking about re:features, power?

In my case, it is running numerous functions on three related databases, one of which has two million records and over 1,000 fields. Exporting subsets to a spreadsheet as it is can take two hours. It would take all day on a couple of hundred dollar machine, and would likely crash it. Three D modeling, 3D printing, certain kinds of animation, high res rendering that requires mumtiple screens ... all call for more than a bare bones unit. And then there’s the bitcoin miners...

[dayglored]

The Register tears into Microsoft's Surface Pro ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

Thanks to Swordmaker for the ping!!

[dayglored]

> “Fondleslabs.” From the first line of the article. I’ll have to remember that one!

The Register has some great terms: boffins (technical professionals), punters (average users), TITSUP (Total Inability To Supply Useful Performance), fondleslab, many others...

[BBB333]

The Mac Mini is a real gem and WAAAAAY overlooked by most folks.
Your 2011 is an excellent machine.

I have one with a 1TB SSD and a 1.5TB spinner that I use for work and music and video. It runs all year and when we want to see one of our 500+ movies we just find it on our iPad and press play via the magic of Apple TV. Much easier than searching for a blu-ray and searching through menus.

I use Parallels and run Windows 7 inside my Mac Mini.

The wife has a new MBP running Windows 8.1 via Parallels.

Happy Freedom Day!

[cartan]

Even my old Surface 2 is still working just fine. It even gets updates. No flickering screen, either…

[zeugma]

The Register has some great terms: boffins (technical professionals), punters (average users), TITSUP (Total Inability To Supply Useful Performance), fondleslab, many others...

The first two are long-term Britishisms. Have seen TITSUP on both sides of the pond in various iterations. Fondleslabs though, is a new one on me. Absolutely love it. I suppose they apply it to any tablet.