with Google bringing out their own branded hardware, i don't see where the OEMs have to run to. Microsoft wasn't going to dominate the tablet market like Desktops and Laptops so i don't think they are too worried if it is a 3 way split with Apple, Google and Microsoft.
Microsoft Surface Tablet announced
- Thread starter Windu
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yn-neko hates a cat
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Has it been entertained that $200 may be the CONTRACT price?
Edit for clarification:
MS has stated that Surface RT would be able to have wireless technologies (such as LTE) besides WiFi built-in. These have been traditionally paired to carriers on launch right?
Edit for clarification:
MS has stated that Surface RT would be able to have wireless technologies (such as LTE) besides WiFi built-in. These have been traditionally paired to carriers on launch right?
Becuase the $200 price point doesn't make sense. Apple's econsystem make sense becuase Apple make money with the hardware; Android's ecosystem make sense becuase google make money on app store and eyeball and OEMs make money with the hardware; MS's old system make money with OS licensing fee.
Now if MS doesn't want to include the OEM in the new RT ecosystem, they need to at lease break even with the hardware sales. Selling the hardwarfe at $100+ lost would not make sense. That's basically what we are discussing here.
Also, excluding OEM means you will lose the cool Asus hardware design.
Contract of what?
yn-neko hates a cat
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brotkasten
Member
Your soul.
they haven't announced any data plan or whatever with the surface. Windows RT/8 of course have support for that stuff though.
The 4G Playbook does! RIM is a continuing source of inspiration after all.
Xbox Live with Xbox Music being their Spotify competitor, Xbox Videos being their competitor to Netflix and online gaming.
Won't happen but wouldn't it be crazy if it did.
LukasTaves
Member
It's alright man!
And i do overuse my emoticons, and i know that it can be very distracting... I'll see to use it more appropriately.
Ms need to create a Zune Pass for videos. I'd subscribe in a instant! Even if it was priced at a premium (ie: More than netflix) i would bite, since their library has more recent stuff.
Hehe MS can come up with a Xbox Live Diamond subscription. You pay 20 a month and you get to "upgrade to a new MS device" every 2 year. Basically you are paying 150/yr subsidy. So with $300 subsidy and $199 on-contract price, you get to own a bland spanking new Microsoft Windows RT tablet.
You can use your next upgrade on the next Xbox.
You can use your next upgrade on the next Xbox.
there have been rumors that they may do just that. They revealed the "New" music service already, but have not said a word about the Video stuff.
Penguins&PolarBears
Member
Theoretically speaking they could bundle Surface with Xbox Music unlimited subscription, monthly Skype Premium service, expanded SkyDrive storage, a MS Office subscription and Xbox Live Gold (console subscription) for $29.99 a month. Over a two year contract that comes to about $720 on top of the $200 down payment.
$920 over 2 years with every MS service subscription vs. $500 upfront with no services included.
Xbox Music Pass = $100/year = $8/month
Office 365 Home Premium = $100/year? = $8/month?
Skype Premium = $54/year = $4.5/month
SkyDrive 50GB+ = $25/year = $2/month
XBL Gold = $60/year = $5/month
Total = ~$27.50/month
$30 x 12 months = $360/year.
doubtful
LukasTaves
Member
I remember then. But there were a story about Ms cancelling those plans due uncooperativity of the content rights holders...
On the other hand, whatever deal Ms would try to do before it was based on the 20 millionish that pays for Xbox Live... With Windows 8 the potential consumer will be at 500 millionish people in no time... I guess it becomes easier to strike better deals this way...
a secret-boss
Banned
I wonder if Windows is going to have a special event on lunch at their Windows Store
Is the slate any good? Would you recommend it? Does it have proper stylus support?
Hmm... it would be easier to just sell a smaller 7" version without subsidies but Microsoft is a hamstrung by the 10.1" minimum screen size for WindowsRT. That's the only reason I think the $200 rumor has any plausibility.
Penguins&PolarBears
Member
I've enjoyed using it for the past year running Windows 8 preview versions, but I wouldn't recommend it now on the cusp of Windows 8 tablets being released. The Samsung Slate is almost a year old. The size and performance are really nice, the dock and pen are excellent, but it has an old Core i5 Sandy Bridge CPU so it runs hot and has relatively poor battery life for a tablet (under 5 hours).
Unless you can get the Samsung Slate for cheap I would wait for an Ivy Bridge tablet or Clover Trail tablet with pen support. If you need a Windows tablet immediately and can't wait for October 26th then I don't think you would be unhappy with the Samsung Slate. It's definitely the best hardware available to be previewing Windows 8 on.
Was thinking about running sketchup and GIMP on it; but I think I should wait till Oct. More competition means cheaper prices.
Makes a lot of sense.... there really should be some kind of all encompassing ms pass that includes everything (or have multiple tiers with levels of service).
The Xbox plan subsidize $360 for 2 year period. So the RT tablet probably will cost 200+350=550. I need to check my original prediction. I think I was dead on.
lol
The Xbox Live subsidy makes sense for the 360, because there is almost literally no point in connecting an Xbox to the internet unless you have a Gold subscription. You offer a huge discount on hardware, and you offer them an essential service at double the price. Similarly, cell companies sell you an essential service for an exorbitant monthly fee and subsidize the hardware.
The problem is that there aren't any essential services for a Surface. It isn't locked down like an Xbox, where you can hardly even use the internet without Microsoft's golden key. That's not to say that they can't offer a subsidy -- just that I don't see what there is to make the subsidy at all appealing. The appeal of a subsidy is usually that "Oh I'm going to pay for this subscription anyway, so I might as well sign a contract and get a discount!"
But if the subsidy comes with a contract for Xbox Music or SkyDrive or something, then its appeal is only as limited as the appeal of those services. I wouldn't take a $200 discount on my iPhone if I had to pay $25/month for Spotify, for example. Perhaps others would though.
The problem is that there aren't any essential services for a Surface. It isn't locked down like an Xbox, where you can hardly even use the internet without Microsoft's golden key. That's not to say that they can't offer a subsidy -- just that I don't see what there is to make the subsidy at all appealing. The appeal of a subsidy is usually that "Oh I'm going to pay for this subscription anyway, so I might as well sign a contract and get a discount!"
But if the subsidy comes with a contract for Xbox Music or SkyDrive or something, then its appeal is only as limited as the appeal of those services. I wouldn't take a $200 discount on my iPhone if I had to pay $25/month for Spotify, for example. Perhaps others would though.
yn-neko hates a cat
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You guys suck 
Complex Shadow
Cudi Lame
ok can either be disappointed now or later.
You guys suck
I think the real idea would be a more "all encompassing" subscription. It's actually kind of a genius idea too because if you get it you would be more inclined to use all the parts of the subscription. Everything ms is doing these days is moving towards a subscription.... even office so take that and apply it to windows as well.
Imagine if they came up with a $20/month subscription that included xbox live gold, xbox music pass, 50 gigs of skydrive storage, office home premium, Skype premium and did a 18 month contract with the $199 surface. If you jumped on that deal you would be more inclined to use all the parts because they were "just there" and once you are paying for all that stuff and using it chances are you would continue to pay after the contract.
How would this ever make sense ?
Lets look at what your talking about here
Xbox live gold - $5
Xbox music pass $10
50 gigs sky drive $2
office 365 - $6
skype premium $9
Total = $32
So now your going to end up saving $12 a month plus get a discount on the surface. So where is MS making the money ?
With the 360 deal it works like this
Normaly Xbox 360 + kinect = $300 . Xbox live = $50 yearly. for 2 years the total MS makes = $400.
The 360 deal is xbox 360 + kinect = $100 plus monthly $15 subscription 15x24= $360 + $100 and your at $460. So ms ends up making more off you .
I think its a far more likely case that MS might be willing to eat a loss on the hardware to increase the window's app store's user base and thus attract more developers who will make more apps which attract more customers.
That's how bundling works with cable companies.... the more stuff you bundle the cheaper per service it gets. It would make sense you get a discount with more things bundled in. Also it does not cost ms that much extra to provide many of these services so getting more people using all their services outweighs making a bit more per user of each individual service if the numbers are significantly higher this way (which overall would be expected).
That said this was just one example.... there are a ton of other ways they could do such a bundle and it makes far more sense if this rumor turns out to be true than them taking the loss.
Because it is a laptop ?
Because it is a tablet ?
Thats the real reason. I don't need a really powerfull laptop all the time , but i do want my laptop as portable as possible .
I don't need a tablet with me all the time , but i want one at certian times.
This device lets me replace a normal laptop and a tablet with just this. It saves money and space for me and makes my life easier.
If i need power I'd just use my desktop , after all if a laptop costs more than a desktop why go for it ?
That isn't how it works at the cable companys.
The cable companys create high prices per service so they can show a heavily discounted bundle price.
it goes like this
Phone - VOIP costs the cable company practicly nothing
Internet - Bandwidth costs fractions of a penny .
TV - The bulk of the money sink. They have to pay other companys for the content on this.
So cable companys want you to bundle and add $10 or $15 or $20 on top of your tv bill to make more money than just selling you tv.
Those who have a phone plan or those who have an internet only plan are a cable companys wet dream.
What was described above was more akin to a cell phone company. They subsidise the phone to get you into the contract . The contract after a few months will pay off the money they subsidised on the phone and you still have over a year of payments in addition to go.
Laptops are powerful enough to be a primary device. Tablets aren't there yet.
the surface pro will have an ivybridge cpu in it. So tablets will be powerful enough if a laptop is compared to a desktop.
You clearly haven't seen the specs on the surface pro
And ms is the same way.... you really think it costs them 5 bucks extra to run xbox live or 9 for Skype (and the same with the others)? Those services are all there whether 500 people use them or 500,000,000. And the cable companies "wet dream" are the ones who bundle everything..... that's why those plans are offered and pushed as hard as they are. It costs them virtually nothing extra to support that user and that user is paying multiple times what a single service user is.
Even using the cell phone plan it still works.... the "service" would be the ms subscription. They subsidize the laptop to get you into the contract for their service using all their services even at a discounted rate because of the extra scale it brings to all their services.
The diffrence between the cable company and the surface/xbox is simple. There is no hardware that is lossing the cable company money up front. So the cable company is in profit from the get go.
MS would be at a negative amount until they start making money from the services that while skydrive costs virtually nothing office , xbox music does.
The cell phone contract doesn't work either because while the cell company is loosing money up front like MS will be doing , there is only one plan to get and its a subsidised plan. The plan already costs a customer many times what the cell company is paying.
With MS they will offer a good value by eating some of the cost from the tablet and reducing the profit margins on all the other services.
MS would make more from selling these services and device un bundled.
How much is the pro? Guesstimate.
No I haven't sir. But I doubt it can run head to head with a laptop tho.
yn-neko hates a cat
Banned
You really should read the OP then.
They said it will be priced similar to ultra books. An ultra book goes for $750 up to $1,300. I'm sure the you will be able to custimise cpu speed , ram amounts and we already know you can pick a 64 or 128 gig ssd.
THey said its running an ivy bridge chip and its coming out in febuary. It should keep up with many ultra books and there is a slight chance it will get haswell.
So while comparing it to a desktop replacement laptop that weighs 7 lbs is going to have it in the best light , it will do well against ultra portables while weighing 2lbs or less vs the 3.5-4lbs of an ultra portable. It will also double as a tablet which an ultra portable can't do.
It doesn't matter because for the price of a laptop i can build a desktop much more powerful than the laptop , however people still buy laptops
Do you really think that the practical difference between a tablet/ultrabook and a laptop is as huge as the difference between a laptop and a desktop? Ultrabooks are for people that will sacrifice money, storage, and processing power for the sake of portability, but most users don't mind a few extra pounds if it saves them hundreds of dollars.
The battery life is a big differentiator IF it can pull this off while wireless is active.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Does the Surface have wacom stylus tech?
The 10.1 might not end up good, so this is my back-up plan.
The 10.1 might not end up good, so this is my back-up plan.
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