What kids want for Christmas

[strife]

Things keep looking worse for the Surface. First Microsoft's orders for the RT were cut in half due to slow sales, then the entry level Pro model was priced at over a grand (with the keyboard, without office), and now it turns out the pro only has four hours of battery life. Back to the drawing board, Microsoft.

http://bgr.com/2012/11/29/microsoft-surf...tery-life/

I don't this is nearly as big of a deal as you're making it out to be. I believe most of us expected it to be in the $800-900 range... it is a laptop replacement... not an ipad replacement.

The 4 hour battery life is low, but like I've said before, I think this is going to be big as a business solution... where people use docking stations and all that, so not a big deal.

[Vanraw]

it is a laptop replacement... not an ipad replacement.

Yep

[grizzle]

Apple is great at building up fads, and perceived needs. Kids rally behind fads, so it's a no-brainer that all the kids are rallying around the iPad. The Surface just launched a month or so ago - most kids probably don't know what a Surface is. And in looking at that data, I see that 35% of kids want a tablet computer Other Than an iPad, and I don't know what other tablet computers are out there, other than Surface, that kids would be clamoring for. Depending on how the survey was given, it could simply be that kids saw the Other option before the Surface option and selected that, or that they simply don't know the name of the MS tablet. But they will...

And for adults, 21% want an iPad, and 21% want a tablet computer Other Than an iPad (again, I'll just assume Surface here).

Surface isn't going to go anywhere anytime soon, if ever. MS has attempted slates before, but this is the one they are hanging their hats on. It's all part of an integrated future - Win8 on Surface, Win8 on phones, Win8 on desktops, similarly styled metro tiles on Xbox, etc.

Grieve, I think your investments with Apple are probably safe for the near future, but as all these new MS products get launched and get their foot in households, I think Apple is going to lose a bit of their own footing.

And Strife has it right - Surface RT competes with iPad, while Surface Pro will compete with small laptops, like the Macbook Air

[Grieve]

I absolutely don't think that Apple is going to hold onto the huge share of the tablet market they have now. But I also think it's Android that is going to be taking that share, not Microsoft. And most of the share will be on the low end (sub $200). I just can't see the Surface gaining any more than a niche. A bigger niche in business than consumer, but still a niche. Especially if it's true that MS is releasing Office on the iPad next year (kind of shooting themselves in the foot there...)

iPad has already become a generic name for tablets in the same way iPod did for MP3 players. The iPhone never quite got there. Everyone knows the name, but it hasn't become a replacement word for smartphone. I think the Surface will be to the iPad what the Zune was to the iPod. Very good hardware, but too expensive and too late to the game to make a dent. Especially with Google and especially Amazon selling at cost (not to mention all the crappy no-name $100 tablets you see in every department store, which I suspect comprise a decent chunk of Android marketshare).

I agree Surface Pro competes with laptops rather than iPads. And if it was $4-500 (like a similar size Windows laptop), I'd probably get one myself. $1020 for the entry model with a keyboard is just too much, though. When you are late to the game, you need to skip the profit to take marketshare (like the Xbox). Now if they had used some of those billions they've spent on advertising to subsidize the price a bit...

[Slamz]

I think a lot of it is going to come down to marketing. If Apple has proved anything, it's that they can sell a dead buffalo to a vegetarian purely through the power of their marketing campaigns. Companies with technically superior products have been squashed by Apple because they just don't have either the marketing dollars or the slick advertisements. Microsoft has sucked at marketing for years, but I have to say their Surface ads are catchy, so maybe that's changing.

I think Apple's biggest threat is simply that someone gets on their level when it comes to marketing.

[strife]

I absolutely don't think that Apple is going to hold onto the huge share of the tablet market they have now. But I also think it's Android that is going to be taking that share, not Microsoft. And most of the share will be on the low end (sub $200). I just can't see the Surface gaining any more than a niche. A bigger niche in business than consumer, but still a niche. Especially if it's true that MS is releasing Office on the iPad next year (kind of shooting themselves in the foot there...)

iPad has already become a generic name for tablets in the same way iPod did for MP3 players. The iPhone never quite got there. Everyone knows the name, but it hasn't become a replacement word for smartphone. I think the Surface will be to the iPad what the Zune was to the iPod. Very good hardware, but too expensive and too late to the game to make a dent. Especially with Google and especially Amazon selling at cost (not to mention all the crappy no-name $100 tablets you see in every department store, which I suspect comprise a decent chunk of Android marketshare).

I agree Surface Pro competes with laptops rather than iPads. And if it was $4-500 (like a similar size Windows laptop), I'd probably get one myself. $1020 for the entry model with a keyboard is just too much, though. When you are late to the game, you need to skip the profit to take marketshare (like the Xbox). Now if they had used some of those billions they've spent on advertising to subsidize the price a bit...

The cheapest laptop with an core i5 processor (like the surface), is $500 on Tigerdirect. It weighs 5.6 lbs. The surface is 2.6 lbs. The 11 inch macbook air, which has an i5 processor and weights 2.38 lbs is $999 starting. You shouldn't be comparing an entry level laptop to the surface. You should be comparing the ultrabooks or the macbook airs.

[Grieve]

Companies with technically superior products have been squashed by Apple because they just don't have either the marketing dollars or the slick advertisements.

Well Apple has one of the lowest marketing budgets of any huge company, so that isn't really an excuse.

I mean just look at Samsung - no wonder they have all you guys brainwashed...



http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/11/29/s...marketing/

Amazon and Google spend about 50% more on marketing than Apple as well.

[grizzle]

I think these charts and stats are pretty interesting, but without breaking the numbers down, I don't think these are really comparing apples to apples. For example, Apple has only a couple of products that they actively market, and they essentially have one target group that they market to - kids. Microsoft, on the other hand, has all sorts of hardware, software, services, enterprise solutions, etc., that they are marketing to a much wider range of demographics, and need more marketing (and thus, marketing budget) to cover the wider array of products.

I think if we were to break the numbers down and, say, compare Apple's marketing budget for the iPad versus MS's marketing budget for Surface, they might be more similar. Granted, I would say Apple probably makes much better use of their marketing budget. That said, Apple has more than doubled their marketing spend in the past 3 years, while MS has remained pretty close. Not sure that means anything, really, but just an observation.

Amazon's marketing spend is curious. Back when I worked there, the mantra was to only use word of mouth advertising (except for the Christmas holidays - they always put out decent Xmas commercials) - actual commercials and big marketing were considered no-no's. But, I guess, now that they have moved beyond a website being their main product, and now they sell actual physical products, they have gotten into the marketing game.

[strife]

What a stupid graph... who would do a graph that is in the billions, and have it show data based on 1000's of millions...

Samsung does TV's and basically every other type of electronics, so it would make sense for them to be higher than Apple or Microsoft, who have more direct market.

[Grieve]

I think these charts and stats are pretty interesting, but without breaking the numbers down, I don't think these are really comparing apples to apples. For example, Apple has only a couple of products that they actively market, and they essentially have one target group that they market to - kids. Microsoft, on the other hand, has all sorts of hardware, software, services, enterprise solutions, etc., that they are marketing to a much wider range of demographics, and need more marketing (and thus, marketing budget) to cover the wider array of products.

Fair point, although apple has more than a couple (iPhone, iPad, iPod, iPad mini, MacBook Air, iMacs, MacBook Pros, AppleTV, etc - all have separate commercials/ads). I would say Apple spends more on TV advertising and Microsoft spends more on print ads, although they've kicked TV ads up a few notches up with Windows 8 and Surface ads - seeing those everywhere. Apparantly they are spending $400m on the Surface launch alone.

Apple gets a lot of free advertising - how many TV shows and movies do you see where they are using macs or iPads?

That said, Apple has more than doubled their marketing spend in the past 3 years, while MS has remained pretty close. Not sure that means anything, really, but just an observation.

Apple has also tripled their market cap and revenue over those 3 years...MS not so much. If you are selling more stuff (and adding more products - the iPad didn't exist 3 years ago) you are going to spend more on ads.

Amazon's marketing spend is curious. Back when I worked there, the mantra was to only use word of mouth advertising (except for the Christmas holidays - they always put out decent Xmas commercials) - actual commercials and big marketing were considered no-no's. But, I guess, now that they have moved beyond a website being their main product, and now they sell actual physical products, they have gotten into the marketing game.

Yeah, I'm guessing the Kindle in particular changed that. It's morphed from just being an eReader to a whole line of products now, from a $69 reader to a $614 9" tablet. And they push their Prime service a lot - not so much the free delivery as the movies and book lending and so on.

Really, you have to give full props to Google, Apple and Amazon - they have defined the modern information age. We don't search for stuff, we "google" it. And no one talks about eReaders, MP3 players, or even tablets - they talk about Kindles, iPods, and iPads. I think they are all great investments (despite Amazon's insane PE). Microsoft had it's day, and I can't see it gaining real relevance again. This is the post-PC era, and Microsoft is way too late to that game.

[strife]

Microsoft had it's day, and I can't see it gaining real relevance again. This is the post-PC era, and Microsoft is way too late to that game.

I take it you don't think having the #1 OS in the world(and it's not even close), the 3rd most used internet browser, 2nd of the big 3 gaming systems, the # 1 office suite software in the world as being not relevant...

[Grieve]

Not when it's in decline (in some cases terminal decline - look at IE market share over the last few years) in all of those except game consoles. Google and to some extent Apple are big threats in browsers (and of course search), OS, office apps, and so on, but the threat is the more from the trend from desktop to mobile.

PCs are in decline, and its taking the old guard (Microsoft, Intel, Dell, HP) down with it. Just look at the dominance Nokia and RIMM had a few years ago - being at or near the top means nothing if your share is declining.

I'd never invest in MS long term, only as a trade for a particular catalyst.

[strife]

PC's in decline doesn't necessarily hurt Microsoft... they are still running Windows and windows from 2008 until today has only lost less than 7% marketshare. They took a killing in browser marketshare when chrome came in... Chrome is killing everyone off... some more slowly than others(firefox).

[Grieve]

The cheapest laptop with an core i5 processor (like the surface), is $500 on Tigerdirect. It weighs 5.6 lbs. The surface is 2.6 lbs. The 11 inch macbook air, which has an i5 processor and weights 2.38 lbs is $999 starting. You shouldn't be comparing an entry level laptop to the surface. You should be comparing the ultrabooks or the macbook airs.

How about a laptop with a touchscreen, i5, only 4lb, more battery, and 8 times the storage for $320 less?
http://www.amazon.com/VivoBook-S400CA-DH...40-6107924

[Grieve]

PC's in decline doesn't necessarily hurt Microsoft... they are still running Windows and windows from 2008 until today has only lost less than 7% marketshare.

Yes, but their mobile market share is tiny, and that's where the future is.

[grizzle]

The cheapest laptop with an core i5 processor (like the surface), is $500 on Tigerdirect. It weighs 5.6 lbs. The surface is 2.6 lbs. The 11 inch macbook air, which has an i5 processor and weights 2.38 lbs is $999 starting. You shouldn't be comparing an entry level laptop to the surface. You should be comparing the ultrabooks or the macbook airs.

How about a laptop with a touchscreen, i5, only 4lb, more battery, and 8 times the storage for $320 less?
http://www.amazon.com/VivoBook-S400CA-DH...40-6107924

But now you're comparing a Surface to a touchscreen laptop running Windows 8. So, both are Win8, but one is a tablet and one is a laptop. And neither are Apple.

[grizzle]

PC's in decline doesn't necessarily hurt Microsoft... they are still running Windows and windows from 2008 until today has only lost less than 7% marketshare.

Yes, but their mobile market share is tiny, and that's where the future is.

Their mobile market is tiny, agreed, but it's also just beginning (in earnest). I think though that talking about the Surface as MS's future is really only touching the surface, no pun intended (oh, ok, it was intended!). I think where things will light afire is with all the integration with additional services, like SkyDrive, through Microsoft accounts. And while there might be other similar solutions, its integration into Win8, which is then uniformly spread throughout a family's, for example, combined set of devices, is how I think the combination of devices, software, and services will really begin to shine.

It will take awhile though before people use and understand how they all fit together, and how they then make life so much more convenient. But while Apple products are still heavily geared towards fads/kids/media/social sharing, the MS offerings will additionally allow for actual productivity solutions.

[Vanraw]

PC's in decline doesn't necessarily hurt Microsoft... they are still running Windows and windows from 2008 until today has only lost less than 7% marketshare.

Yes, but their mobile market share is tiny, and that's where the future is.

In the business market PC's are anything but in decline. Residential? perhaps but not by as much as people think. What the PC looks like is in our future. It will be a touchscreen laptopish like device. The tablet is no where close to having real functionality that replaces anything except browsing and remedial gaming.

[Grieve]

In the business market PC's are anything but in decline. Residential? perhaps but not by as much as people think. What the PC looks like is in our future. It will be a touchscreen laptopish like device. The tablet is no where close to having real functionality that replaces anything except browsing and remedial gaming.

There are some things that will always need a PC-like approach. For example...I'm a programmer, and I can't imagine doing it with anything less than a full sized keyboard and a big-assed screen (or even better, several screens).

But there is a HUGE area of business applications that absolutely do not need a full desktop or laptop. The future there is some form of mobile, whether it's a tablet or wearable computing. For example...the sales force (thousands of them) at our company use tablets most of the time now. Every week there some new announcement about a company moving a section of their workforce over to tablets.

The PC won't die completely, just as feature phones won't die, but their high growth years are done. PC shipments grew 0.9% this year, which is really a decline when you consider population growth, and I think that will turn into true decline soon. Meanwhile tablet sales are expected to grow from 56m in 2011 to 375m in 2016 (which is more than the number of PCs shipping this year), with 760m in use by then.

[strife]

The cheapest laptop with an core i5 processor (like the surface), is $500 on Tigerdirect. It weighs 5.6 lbs. The surface is 2.6 lbs. The 11 inch macbook air, which has an i5 processor and weights 2.38 lbs is $999 starting. You shouldn't be comparing an entry level laptop to the surface. You should be comparing the ultrabooks or the macbook airs.

How about a laptop with a touchscreen, i5, only 4lb, more battery, and 8 times the storage for $320 less?
http://www.amazon.com/VivoBook-S400CA-DH...40-6107924

You're getting closer, but still... that's a laptop with a shitty resolution. The Surface is HD resolution. Also ~1.5 lbs heavier in a larger form factor. Surface has 2 HD cameras, a better GPU etc. I'm going to guess the Surface's proc is going to be faster than 1.7 GHZ, but they haven't released those specs yet so I don't know..

[strife]

PC's in decline doesn't necessarily hurt Microsoft... they are still running Windows and windows from 2008 until today has only lost less than 7% marketshare.

Yes, but their mobile market share is tiny, and that's where the future is.

I disagree that that is where the future is. I agree that's part of the future... but I'm fairly confident in saying that the PC and laptops/laptop replacements like the surface, are going to play a strong part in the future.

[grizzle]

Speaking of the Surface sucking, I just picked mine up today. Woohoo! Really impressed with it in general, but especially the touch keyboard/cover.

[strife]

Speaking of the Surface sucking, I just picked mine up today. Woohoo! Really impressed with it in general, but especially the touch keyboard/cover.

my boss has one, he raves about the keyboard.

[Kakarat]

I don't know what kids they surveyed. but my daughter asked for a monster high doll and a figit friend.

[grizzle]

And speaking of kids and Christmas:

http://searchengineland.com/this-year-no...gle-142313