Surface is special and a huge success, Paul is wrong

<p>You are mixing up a lot here, most obviously facts and emotions.</p><p><br></p><p>First, this type of thing should be posted as a comment to the article in question. Taking this discussion outside the Premium system is not OK, and I would normally just delete this post as a result. But I feel like this is a topic worth discussing with the broader reader base because. You obviously care about Surface on some emotional level, and I get that. But as with many enthusiasts, that emotion is also coloring your views.</p><p><br></p><p>I needed to state that up front: This end-run around our Premium business is not OK. But the biggest issue I really have here is the weird personalization thing, where it's clear you believe that my comments about Surface are somehow directed at undercutting what you see as its success. I see this kind of thing a lot. You were actually hurt by this comparison. Like, personally.</p><p><br></p><p>And I'm sorry for that. In communicating what I believe to be an accurate accounting of the Surface business, I was in no way criticizing those who like Surface or prefer it over other PC brands. Instead, I was simply comparing Google's experience with PCs with Microsoft's because of the obvious parallels. And because I had, in the past, written about the Alan Kay thing about software makers needing to make their own hardware, and of my belief that Google AND Microsoft, because of their partner-based business models (in contrast to Apple's) should not compete with their partners but should instead make their special hardware components available to those partners (at some licensing fee, similar to how they license their operating systems). This wasn't a smear job, as your post here suggests. It was simply a rational comparison. At least an attempt at one.</p><p><br></p><p>Your argument that Surface is "special" or deserving respect is an opinion, and I'm sure it's one many here share (myself included). But it's also an opinion that has absolutely nothing to do with Surface being (or not being) successful. Brad and I often talk about how there is a special something about Surface PCs, and this is true despite their relative lack of success in the market and their curious technical deficiencies, which are well documented.(And please. Read my reviews of these products. Please.) But … successful? That one is tough: Surface has had some success in that it has formalized a 2-in-1 tablet form factor that <em>all</em> PC makers have copied, including by the way both Google (Pixel Slate) and Apple (iPad Pro). That said, it has not emerged as a viable competitor to the world's biggest PC makers, as I wrote. It is now, as I also noted, a billion dollar business by revenue. But Microsoft never talks about the business being profitable because it is not: Hardware has razor-thin margins, and that's true of much bigger PC makers that can get much better component pricing than does Microsoft. Surface loses money.</p><p><br></p><p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The amount of people that have switched from ThinkPads or even MacBooks to Surface is really surprising." This is not a fact. I'm curious why you would believe this. I don't recall any credible analyst, or Microsoft, ever suggesting that there is a wave of switchers moving to Surface from other premium PC brands.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Your point that Intel is somehow to blame for Surface's lack of success is … whatever, but it is a condition that exists for all PC makers. For example, Lenovo was able to sell far more PCs last year than it did in 2017, and it regained the top spot among PC makers. It did so using the same Intel CPU choices as everyone else. That "we could see Surface make serious inroads on Apple and ThinkPads marketshare" is another opinion, and a hopeful one. But given how infrequently Microsoft updates its PCs and how few models it sells, however, especially compared to Lenovo (the maker of ThinkPads), it doing so is highly unlikely. Hell, Apple ships MacBooks with flat, no travel keyboards and that business is approximately 7 times as big as Surface by revenue, using data from the last quarter in which Apple provided Mac unit sales.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">That "Surface is a top 5 PC maker in the US" was only reported in one quarter by one of the top two analyst firms, and not by the other. Put more accurately, Surface is not in fact a top 5 PC maker, and it doesn't even register in the charts worldwide. But even if it was, again, it's still not a profitable business. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Look, we all have opinions. Like you, I love Surface PCs, especially Surface Laptop and Surface Book. And it is a fact that Microsoft's most successful design, for Surface Pro, is absolutely a trend-setter, much like Apple's second-gen MacBook Air was. But I'm also clear-headed and honest about how well the business is doing. Stating that doesn't make me a hater. And I guess in my own emotional way, I don't appreciate the insinuation.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Paul</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>