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Surprise! The Microsoft Surface won't be $200

Subject: General Tech | September 17, 2012 - 12:36 PM |
Tagged: surface, microsoft, obvious, ballmer

While Steve Ballmer did not give a firm price for his companies Surface Tablet, The Inquirer was given a range that starts well above the original $200 price tag.  The range he gave stretches from just over $300 to just over $800, fairly similar to the iPad range of pricing from the base 16GB WiFi only to the full 64GB WiFi and cellular.  The hardware of Surface tablet is going to have to shine in order to compete in the tablet market, as simply running Windows 8 will probably not be enough to make it stand out, if sales of Win7 based phones and tablets are any indicator.  The pricing may appease some of Microsoft's clients such as Acer, who were more than a little upset at Microsoft's announcement that they were getting into hardware instead of simply licensing manufacturers to use the Win8 OS and branding.

Apparently there is a way to get both a Surface Tablet and a Win8 phone on the cheap, Microsoft will be handing out one of each to all of its full time employees.

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"200 Microsoft dollars"

"BOUNCY MICROSOFT CEO Steve Ballmer has refused to put a price on the Windows Surface tablet and has only given a ballpark figure of somewhere between £200 and £500.

What this means is that a Windows Surface tablet will cost more than an Android tablet, such as the Asus Nexus 7 for example, but less than an Ipad."

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Source: The Inquirer

Surface is just a proof of concept?

Subject: General Tech | July 11, 2012 - 01:38 PM |
Tagged: microsoft, surface, ballmer

Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, recently referred to the Surface ultraportable as "just a design point".  This is bound to disappoint a lot of geeks who fell in love with the new touchscreen tablet/laptop which showed off the new Win8 interface in a much more effective manner than we have seen from previous computers.  On the other hand, many OEM's will find this announcement reassuring as when the Surface was first introduced they were less than impressed at a software company muscling in on their territory.  Still, he expects to sell a million or so of the devices so those who really desire a Surface should be able to get their hands on one.  Check out more about the conference Ballmer held in Toronto at The Register.

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"Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has downplayed the impact of Redmond's "iPad-killer" – aka the Surface tablet – as he wrapped a comforting arm around PC OEMS that may feel a little unnerved by the move.

The covers were lifted off the shiny slate weeks ago, but it was dismissed by several hardware vendors, including long-time partner Acer, which said Microsoft should concentrate its efforts on software development."

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Source: The Register

Your company lost $7 million last year? Can we buy it for $8.5 billion? Microsoft buys Skype.

Subject: General Tech | May 10, 2011 - 12:51 PM |
Tagged: ballmer, microsoft, boomtown, skype, purchase, billion

The rumour mill really dropped the ball on this one, as just a few hours ago it was Facebook that everyone was muttering would one day buy Skype.  Turns out that in just a few hours the new rumour that Microsoft was going to buy Skype for $7 billion became a reality at an $8.5 billion price tag. 

Skype lost $7 million dollars last year, though that number seems rather small compared to their overall balance sheet to date which puts them $686 million in the hole.  As All Things Digital is quick to point out, that is slightly less than what Microsoft Online Services Division lost last Quarter, proving all things are relative even at very high amounts of dollars.

On the plus side, Microsoft gets its hands on Skype's 763 million registered users, about twice as many as there are MSN users and significantly more that there are XBox Live users.  Toss in the TechNet people and you still have nowhere near the user pool that Skype brings.  That huge increase in the number of people Microsoft can reach possibly gives them the ability to recoup the money they spent to buy them.  Consider that 8 million users pay actual money for their Skype account, which Wired considers as at least a hint of Microsoft's strategy.

Most PC users who already use Windows, such as those at Ars Technica, are scratching their heads over the purchase while Linux users at Slashdot are very concerned about continuing support for the Skype Linux Client.

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"The Wall Street Journal reported earlier tonight that Microsoft–in what would be its most aggressive acquisition in the digital space–was zeroing in on buying Skype for $8.5 billion all in with an assumption of the Luxembourg-based company’s debt.

Sources told BoomTown tonight that the deal for the online telephony and video communications giant is actually done and will be announced early tomorrow morning."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

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Source: All Things Digital

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