Microsoft's "Micro Hard" Road

History of repeated defeats

Last year released its own brand flat Surface RT and Pro, Microsoft is full of heart, hoping to bring the advantages of the desktop into the flat field, challenging the dominance of apple and Google. But the response from the market is like cold water. In the first quarter of this year, the total sales volume of Surface RT and Pro was only 900 thousand, with a market share of less than 2%, while Apple iPad sales in the same period were 19 million 500 thousand. Sales of products with very few hardware differences are quite different.

More order Microsoft Awkwardly, as of the second quarter of this year, the total sales volume of Suface product line was US $853 million, but we had to account for the impairment of assets related to RT of 900 million US dollars, plus the marketing expenses related to Surface and Windows 8, which was invested by US $900 million in the early stage. Microsoft has suffered heavy losses on Surface. Due to the poor performance of RT, HTC, Samsung and other OEM manufacturers have abandoned the RT research and development plan. The company that is still pushing forward is Microsoft itself. (good friend NOKIA has been accepted by Microsoft.)

In the face of such a failure, Microsoft still did not give up. Today, they released the second generation of Surface in New York and continue to move on to the path of microhardness. If we look back on the development of the past ten years, we can see that Microsoft is not afraid of failure.

In addition to the unbreakable rocking of Windows and Office, software giant Microsoft has suffered many setbacks in developing new products, Qian Shu. Xbox, Zune and Bing are all beginning to be bleak. They have been losing money for several consecutive years. These disadvantaged products have different outcomes: Xbox has now become one of Microsoft's most successful products, and Zune has been decisively abandoned after years of insistence. While Bing is not brilliant in its performance, Microsoft is a pillar business of Google against Google.

Perhaps Microsoft wants Surface to become the next Xbox, like ten years ago, against SONY and Nintendo, and a way out in the tablet market dominated by apple and Google. But even if it can't be as successful as Xbox, Surface The significance of Microsoft is also not inferior to Bing, because mobile has become the unbearable weight of Microsoft. The failure of smart phones and tablet machines is an important reason for Ballmer's resignation from CEO.

Ballmer's strategy for Microsoft was to transform into a "equipment and service company". Software giant Microsoft's business span two major areas: enterprise level and consumption. For the successful Microsoft market, the significance of transformation lies in the breakthroughs in mobile phone and tablet. The acquisition of NOKIA hardware for $7 billion 200 million is an important manifestation of Microsoft's strategy. NOKIA Lumia mobile phone shipments have occupied nearly 90% of the Windows Phone camp. With this acquisition, Microsoft is almost equal to its own monopoly of WP product line.

In the field of flat panel, Microsoft has no strategic partner like NOKIA, and only rely on Surface products to promote many OEM vendors to follow up, especially the Pro product line. Microsoft is not unwilling to achieve huge sales volume by Surface, but with Surface as a demonstration, hardware partners can jointly build Windows flat ecosystem, so it is possible to occupy their share under the apple and Google platforms. This is the most important goal of Microsoft Surface product line. Although sales of Surface Pro are not large, Acer, ASUS and DELL Mainstream manufacturers have launched Win 8 tablet this year, and the first generation of Surface Pro has completed some of Microsoft's goals. {page_break}

Entertainment and work

Therefore, even if the first generation of Surface performance is dim, Microsoft will continue to push ahead with the Surface strategy. Differentiation is a possible breakthrough for Microsoft tablet. Specifically, it is to create a tablet with entertainment and work to achieve the functions that apple and Google tablet can not achieve. From the perspective of the function of the second generation Surface tablet, Microsoft continues to adhere to this position, hoping to use more powerful performance to get through entertainment and work.

Apple and Google are targeting tablet devices in content consuming devices. Although there are defects in content generation, the perfect application ecosystem provides more entertainment functions. Although the first generation of Surface is prominent in terms of efficiency, the lack of application and portability makes it impossible to compare entertainment with apple and Android. Plus the same or even higher pricing with apple iPad, the first generation of Surface sales are dismal.

On the second generation of Surface products, Microsoft continues to enhance processor performance: the upgraded version of RT Surface 2 uses NVIDIA's Tegra 4 quad core chip, while Surface Pro 2 joins Intel's latest Haswell core i5 processor, which continues to enhance performance (20%) while greatly enhancing battery life (75%). If you add the latest Power Cover keyboard cover, Surface Pro 2 has been able to achieve the all day endurance of apple Macbook Air.

At the press conference, Microsoft Surface vice president Panos Panay (Panos Panay) emphasized the most important aspect of Surface Pro, that is, "full performance": This is a tablet that can give consideration to work and entertainment, and it is a tablet machine with capability to challenge notebook. From the demonstration of Surface Pro 2 running large games and various document processing on the spot, and editing the video captured by professional camera RED, Surface Pro 2 can fully afford the title of a workstation (WorkStation).

Microsoft has a clear idea. How many electronic devices does a consumer need to own? Smart phones and notebooks are indispensable. Tablet machines are mostly entertainment oriented and occasionally processed mail. When people go out, they don't want to bring tablet machines and notebooks at the same time. If a product can be used as a tablet for palmtop tasks and a real full performance notebook with accessories, plus a reasonable price, it will almost certainly be welcomed.

This is the location of Surface Pro product line. If Surface Pro is truly perfect in terms of entertainment and work, and with portability and full performance, Microsoft tablet will have the full strength to win the market. After all, the vast majority of consumers are Windows users. But judging from the pricing of Surface Pro 2, this product is more likely to be a competitor than Microsoft's Intel ally. Lightweight, portable and efficient performance is also an important selling point of ultra core. Now more and more ultra polar devices are also equipped with touch screens, and can even be used as flat panels.

In terms of pricing, the Surface Pro 2, which starts at $900, is also roughly the same as that of the ultra pole, close to Apple's Macbook Air level. Microsoft believes that future notebooks will be integrated with tablet computers. Surface Pro is such a product. At the same time, the super pole is also moving towards this aspect under the promotion of touch screen and deformation design. These two product lines are products of Microsoft and Intel, but Microsoft and Intel are their respective main concepts, but now they are more likely to compete internally.

Surface 2 is Microsoft's insistence on low-end tablets. Although Microsoft acquired NOKIA, Microsoft remained alone on the RT tablet, but at least Microsoft has not yet given up the intention. Surface 2 has further improved in the chip, screen, camera and so on. From the hardware point of view, this tablet is no worse than apple iPad, and its performance is better than iPad. The obvious short board is the number of applications. However, it should be noted that the number of RT store applications has reached 100 thousand level in 12 months since it was officially launched in October last year, and it took 14 months when the number of iPad applications reached this threshold.