Besides Microsoft’s commercials, it seems few people are talking about the Surface. Microsoft recently announced a $900 million write-down related to unsold Surface RT inventory. Yes, you read that right. Microsoft lost almost $1 billion due to unsold inventory of their much-hyped iPad competitor. The quote in the following article I think sums it up: “the company misread the consumer market by a comical degree.”
It should be obvious by now that virtually no one is interested in Microsoft’s Surface devices, even with Microsoft’s trumpeting that they are the only tablet devices that run Microsoft Office (only because Microsoft won’t release Office for any other tablet platform). Can we read into this that no one really cares about running Microsoft Office on a tablet? Going further can we read into this that no one really cares about Microsoft Office?
The take-away for small business and consumers here is to not tie your fortunes to Microsoft technology any longer. If you haven’t already begun mitigating your reliance on Microsoft technology, you must do so now – or risk emulating the company’s poor performance.
