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General Category >> The Cafe >> Microsoft adjusts prices .... again
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Message started by Oldfeller on 08/04/13 at 11:17:56

Title: Microsoft adjusts prices .... again
Post by Oldfeller on 08/04/13 at 11:17:56

Microsoft lowers Surface Pro price by $100, now starts at $799

http://liliputing.com/2013/08/microsoft-lowers-surface-pro-price-by-100-now-starts-at-799.html

Now, here is a interesting perspective from a financial news organization. Microsoft wrote off $900,000,000 so far on their tablet stuff and have just marked the remainder down again. And these are the GOOD ones, the ones that run full Windows.

Total revenue from tablet/phone sales for the entirety of last year are only $650,000,000 in total. If you figure it from the rolling month Surface started shipping, $850,000,000 in raw revenue, remove $900,000,000 for the big Surface write off equals $50,000 in the hole on the product line, not counting the millions spent in R&D and the 10s of millions spent on hard advertising on a failed product.

Ballmer is losing his shorts in the hardware business. And the mark downs continue piling up as the stuff doesn't move.

Microsoft is in the hole on cell phones, on tablets and the only thing they are making any money on is old updates for old software for old style PCs. And that PC market is shrinking like snowballs in summertime.

Their Office stuff is getting suborned by all the young people finding stuff to do the same thing in cyber space, they learn how to do it for free there and find they can do it on PC as well, cheaply or for free.

Office is now Excel and Powerpoint mostly, Word is becoming less a necessity since MS can't keep their old stuff talking to their new stuff very well and the alternatives like Open Office do a better job of reading and writing old files than MS does. Secretaries are telling their bosses "NO new Word for me, thank you very much !!!"

Businesses are beginning to NOT want to upgrade at all as it becomes a royal pain in the butt to do so. Retraining costs are high and productivity takes a real hit for the entire year following an upgrade.

And MS itself has now been disassembled for renovation and upgrade -- and we know how good they are at that little trick, right?

Look for MS to lose track of lots of different stuff in the shuffle -- like your license to use the stuff you bought years & years ago.