Replies

What sort of person would *finally* buy a tablet as a “first tablet” purchase?

Laggards who are dummies.

So, the target market is -— people who are technical laggards.....kinda like the Zune market. Who, after 5 years of MP3 players did not have one? And if they did have one, why would they want to go higher price/lower functionality? Because the on Microsoft stock?

it’s gonna be a tough, tough road when you follow the other guy after he’s introduced his 3rd gen product, and the samsungs of the world have ultracheap tablets at basically < 200$.

They have “jealous guy” management. Monkey boy so much wants to be cool, he will drive the company off the cliff building products that change the direction of the company while ignoring their base.

Video Offers Side-by-Side Look at Microsoft & Steve Jobs Keynotes

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/video_offers_side-by-side_look_at_microsoft_steve_jobs_keynotes/

Big fail on copying Steve Jobs style...

Microsoft should stop pretending, and quit playing in personal devices. They SHOULD go after the BUISNESS MARKET and improve their whole business offerings, making them easier to use and more sticky. They could take on for example web servers where they have < 5% of the market.

They can't ignore personal devices, because of how many executives carry those things. When an executive carries it, it's going to trickle down the ladder, officially or unofficially.

Microsoft more than anybody knows how important these markets are - at one point they pretty much owned the smartphone market, for nearly 20 years they did own the tablet market - people forget that Microsoft rolled out their first tablet OS back in 1991. Microsoft knows that these devices are what's driving Apple's success, are what's getting Apple into the business space, and are what's helping to drive Mac sales. Macs may not account for many desktops and laptops, but there does come a point where they start to eat heavily into Microsoft's profits.

Microsoft has not only pissed away their smartphone and tablet markets, but they've watched the PC makers flop around on competing with Apple. This is probably the smartest thing Microsoft has done lately, but they still have a sales guy running the company when they need a product guy like Bill Gates.

it’s gonna be a tough, tough road when you follow the other guy after he’s introduced his 3rd gen product, and the samsungs of the world have ultracheap tablets at basically < 200$.

Samsung didn't have too much of a problem overtaking Apple in smartphone sales, with their Androids, even though Androids launched after the iPhones. Come to think of it, Apple overtook RIM and Nokia(Symbian), even though the latter two were long established and had most of the smart phone market share before Apple came in. Nothing is permanent n the technology world.

“Microsoft should stop pretending, and quit playing in personal devices”

Umm..the XBOX 360 has been the top selling video game console n America for 17 straight months. That is a “personal device” too, and a consumer electronics product to boot.

“They SHOULD go after the BUISNESS MARKET and improve their whole business offerings, making them easier to use and more sticky. “

Microsoft OWNS the business market, with by far the biggest market share in corporate servers(by units), email servers etc, not to mention Windows domination of the corporate desktop.

“They could take on for example web servers where they have < 5% of the market.””

Umm..no.
Last figures I have for Windows web server is 13.6%:
http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/microsoft-web-server-market-share-decreases-despite-windows-8-beta-release

Microsoft should stop pretending, and quit playing in personal devices.

Microsoft has a history of making good hardware that sells well. They had the first ergonomic mouse, with the first scroll wheel, and they had the first successful optical mouse. The Zune was their first real failure, and that was actually pretty good hardware (Toshiba, actually), the problem being it was a just a copycat of the market-dominating iPod.

Monkey boy so much wants to be cool

I do agree that monkey boy is the biggest problem Microsoft has. A lot of talented people work there, but there's no vision. There's a good reason for the old quote from Apple's bad days, "Microsoft can't afford for Apple to go under; they'd lose their R&D department."