Confirmed: Microsoft Surface Pro available in January 2013–OEMs less pissed
When Microsoft revealed the Surface they noted “ Surface for Windows RT will release with the general availability of Windows 8, and the Windows 8 Pro model will be available about 90 days later.” And today they said “Windows 8 will reach general availability by the end of October!“ So that means the Surface RT is coming in October. Now count with me and add 3 months and we’re in January, 2013 for the Surface Pro. Why is that a big deal? Well everyone buys everything in November and December – that’s the ‘holiday’ push we all know. Retail lives in those months. Black Friday gets its name for being the start of when companies are no longer in the red. So the delay is likely intentional designed to not piss off OEMs too much so the OEMs push out their tablets. Of course, this means MS is taking a hit themselves, but I guess it’s for the team. I think it’s a foolish move but I get it as a compromise to not blindside all of their partners.
I think the over/under is to see if they outsell the Kindle Fire 2 and/or the Nexus 7. They’re not going to overtake the iPad with a gen1 device with a new OS and a premium sticker price. Remember though that they’re bringing a premium product at a premium price to and we’re comparing that to a product with a sticker that starts like a fire sale with no margins.
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Jan. 2013 is fine with me giving me more time to save for Surface Win8 Pro or I will get the RT for my family first.
Glad I settled on the RT then. But October is sooooo far away.
January is a mistake.. what happens early on in the year? iPad rumormills..
Yeah yeah, different markets and blah blah blah.. no. The tablet market is DOMINATED by the iPad. Microsoft should have said at the press conference “This is the Surface RT and the Pro. They’re $XXX and $X,XXX. And you can buy them in 3 weeks.”
Instead, they basically said “We’re trying to catch up to Apple in the tablet market because they caught us with our pants around our ankles. Our OS isn’t done yet, and our OEMs are trying to figure out how to make a tablet, so we decided to screw them over by making our own. We call it surface, it’s available in a neutered RT form boasting an under-powered ARM architecture with ZERO legacy support. You can’t run anything on the desktop like a windows computer has forever. It’s also available in an Intel architecture ‘Pro’ form which will run legacy apps. And anything made specifically for the RT will need to be recompiled , resubmitted, and supported separately. Also, we have no clue what they’ll sell for since we really need to figure out how to best price it against the iPad, screw our OEM partners, and make a buck or two. That’s all. Oh, and I’m Steve Ballmer and I sweat through my shirt before finishing this sentence.”
I know M$ for a while. At the moment they are overpacing because Steve and the other pussies realized how far behind they are in reality. They try anything to make it a success, even if it means to sacrifice their business customers. They force Win8 desktops to use the new beeeeep (trademark violation in germany!) instead of the start menu anyone is used to. They try to create something like an iStore but the content is still missing. They don’t even give a s–t about their hardware OEM partners (they have not been given any s–t for their software partners for a long time, just taking their money for the super whack partner program). I would not be very astonished to see different software on the business desktops in two years if anyone is able to develop a counter strategy to that (maybe we will have M$ mobiles by that time lol). Why isn’t M$ offering super cheap touch monitors as bundle with Win8, that would fill the loop hole. I would be willing to pay, say $20.
Microsoft should have said at the press conference “This is the Surface RT and “the Pro. They’re $XXX and $X,XXX. And you can buy them in 3 weeks.” ”
ABSOLUTELY!