Microsoft Surface RT for... $199?

I am excited for the potential shake up. Industry has needed this for awhile.
 
im saving for the surface pro model, but for that price, ill bite and get both. to good to be true.....
 
Hmmm, this is starting leak from a few places it looks: http://www.forbes.com/sites/netapp/2012/08/14/windows-rt-tablet-price-release-date-otoh/

Now that I think about it, I remember Acer CEO Wang saying something about RT tablets to the effect that they shouldn't cost $199 and I didn't really take a lot of stock in it but that Forbes article is saying that $199 is going to be about what ALL the RT tablets are costing and the partners must have known this for a while now it looks.

So I'm saying that this is true for now, because if it's not, well that would be kind of bad as this price rumor is going to spread like wildfire until Microsoft says otherwise and it would be way worse than the Metro debacle and they came back with a $500 price tag.

$200 base price on ALL the Windows RT tablets. That changes the tablet game without question, even the whole PC market.
 
I guess Microsoft could be doing what they've done with consoles, take a loss on the hardware and make up for it with the software.

And at $200, this would definitely speed up the development of Windows 8 apps. And I so hope this is real, because like almost everyone, I think it just sounds way too good to be true.

Surface is a 10.1 inch, Tegra 3, 32GB, micro USB, micro SD, micro HDMI, tablet that might even have a retina like display.

And I could see why Acer is upset. If Microsoft is having all the partners sell their ARM tablets at $200, that sucks for Acer, because they usually make cheaper low end tablets. If the Acer, ASUS, Samsung, Microsoft, tablets are all the same price, I know Acer would be the last one I'd consider.
 
As implausible as it sounds, Microsoft could do this and take billions in losses to get Win 8 out there. I mean, they've already burned their bridges with their business partners with Win 8 Server, so maybe they are willing to do this as well.
 
How would an OEM make money at $199? Or would MS just send all these OEMs a check for the difference (which makes no sense)?
 
Dumping well below fair market value and charging OEMs $85 for a WinRT license (which includes compulsory Office bundling)?

Sure; why not? It's been ages since Microsoft's properly pissed off the FTC, et al. They're overdue.
 
XenIneX said:
Dumping well below fair market value and charging OEMs $85 for a WinRT license (which includes compulsory Office bundling)?

Sure; why not? It's been ages since Microsoft's properly pissed off the FTC, et al. They're overdue.
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If this rumor is true, there's no way that an RT license costs $85. More likely Microsoft would be subsidizing RT devices. And another thing that seems to make the price a possibility. There were rumors of HP and HTC not being permitted to make RT devices, not right now. That certainly doesn't line up with the $85 per RT license theory at all and seems more in line with Microsoft ponying up something to get RT devices built.

Here's another article that from our Microsoft loving friends at ArsTechina that says this:

$199 is a crazy price for a well-built, well-designed, 10" tablet. It's not completely impossible, and there are ways in which the economics could be made to work. But the results for Microsoft and the PC OEMs alike would be nothing short of a disaster.
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http://arstechnica.com/information-...-and-why-it-shouldnt/?comments=1#comments-bar

These guys REALLY hate Windows 8. One of the best priced tablets ever for the features and build would be a disaster? Good lord. Peter Bright makes some good points but the hype at some of these places is just getting old. Windows 8 is a disaster now because it's too cheap? First it was the UI, now it's because the thing will sell like hot cakes to Peter Bright and Peter, well he likes his hot cakes.
 
As far as I can tell, this whole thing stated wit the Acer guy mentioning 199 as a purely random figure and now it's blown into a major story on every site. This is pure speculation.
 
MrCrispy said:
As far as I can tell, this whole thing stated wit the Acer guy mentioning 199 as a purely random figure and now it's blown into a major story on every site. This is pure speculation.
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No, that's not how this rumor got started though people are using what Acer said as a proof of this claim. What started this rumor is several people who were at a Microsoft conference that said Microsoft announced the pricing there. I think that's why this one has some legs because these people supposedly got the info directly from Microsoft at a known event.
 
heatlesssun said:
These guys REALLY hate Windows 8. One of the best priced tablets ever for the features and build would be a disaster?
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A tablet price war that would rise between MSFT *and* their OEM partners would be a disaster. A $200 Surface RT would force Acer, Asus, Samsung, et al to lower their WinRT tablets to be competitive. (and I thought the entire point of Surface was to go after Apple)

$299 I can believe. $199 seems more like wishful thinking.
 
Saturn_V said:
A tablet price war that would rise between MSFT *and* their OEM partners would be a disaster. A $200 Surface RT would force Acer, Asus, Samsung, et al to lower their WinRT tablets to be competitive. (and I thought the entire point of Surface was to go after Apple)

$299 I can believe. $199 seems more like wishful thinking.
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I'm not saying that there's not a point there but it would also be a disaster for Apple and Google. It would be a seismic shift that would implications on the entire industry, not just Microsoft and it's OEM.
 
heatlesssun said:
I'm not saying that there's not a point there but it would also be a disaster for Apple and Google. It would be a seismic shift that would implications on the entire industry, not just Microsoft and it's OEM.
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You have horrendous reading comprehension. I'm rather surprised you can even find the keyboard.

Right there, top of the page:

A $199 price tag would stimulate consumer interest, devastate OEM involvement.
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We already know MS is charging OEMs $85 for the RT license. This isn't up for debate.

Microsoft's relationships with OEMs are already strained as a result of Surface. Acer, in particular, has been vocal in its complaints about Microsoft muscling in on the hardware market. A $199 system would give the company's hardware partners no room to maneuver, forcing them out of the Windows RT market as soon as they've entered it.

This would seriously harm relationships with the other OEMs. Digitimes reported that Acer CEO JT Wang was quite explicit on this point: it claims that he said that a $199 Surface RT would have a "significant impact" on the OEMs, but that a $499-599 price would have only a small effect. With no means to effectively compete with Microsoft, other tablet manufacturers would likely switch to, or stick with, Android.

That would be problematic for Redmond. As much as the company may be disappointed with the OEMs, the fact is, it needs them. Microsoft is a newcomer to the PC hardware market, and as such, it doesn't have the supply chain and manufacturing infrastructure to crank out tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, of Windows RT tablets a year.

Even if the long-term ambition is to be an Apple-like vertically integrated system builder—and the profitability of this approach is certainly enviable—it will take years to build the experience and industry connections to do that. In the meantime, Microsoft needs the OEMs to be active participants in the tablet market.

Bad blood in tablets could have a knock-on effect on the desktop and laptop market, too. Windows 8 is already a contentious release thanks to its numerous user interface changes. It's not likely that the OEMs are going to switch to Linux anytime soon for their conventional PCs—but they could respond to doubts about the new operating system, especially among enterprise customers, by continuing to push Windows 7 even once Windows 8 has been released, and fueling the perception that Windows 8 just isn't cut out for conventional computers.

If the ill feeling is strong enough, then even lawsuits aren't out of the question. There could be an antitrust angle—Microsoft is rumored to be charging OEMs as much as $85 for Windows RT licenses, compared to, effectively, $0 for Surface RT—and possibly, if Microsoft sells Surface RT outside the US, a dumping angle—generally selling in foreign markets at below cost to hurt competitors is frowned upon. Selling Surface RT hardware profitably, and with enough margin to "pay" for the software license, would protect against such retaliation.
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Before you go off on a rampant tangent about who-the-hell-knows-what, you may want to actually read the article you're referencing, because you never know what the words might actually say.
 
pelo said:
We already know MS is charging OEMs $85 for the RT license. This isn't up for debate.
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We do not know that a Windows RT license costs $85 dollars anymore than we know that the Surface will have a $199 price point. It's all rumor and conjecture and not verifiable at this point. If Surface starts at $199 it would impossible for a Windows RT license to cost $85, at least for the major manufactures. It could be that $85 would be that charge for smaller or independent device makers. But again all rumor at this point.

And I don't have to worry about finding the keyboard, I've got a touch screen and a pen if necessary. :p Seriously, learn to lay off the personal stuff and just discuss the subject, it's just childish.;)
 
These guys REALLY hate Windows 8. One of the best priced tablets ever for the features and build would be a disaster? Good lord. Peter Bright makes some good points but the hype at some of these places is just getting old. Windows 8 is a disaster now because it's too cheap? First it was the UI, now it's because the thing will sell like hot cakes to Peter Bright and Peter, well he likes his hot cakes.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that there's not a point there but it would also be a disaster for Apple and Google. It would be a seismic shift that would implications on the entire industry, not just Microsoft and it's OEM.
Click to expand...

Seriously, learn to lay off the personal stuff and just discuss the subject, it's just childish
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It's kind of difficult to discuss the subject when the person on the other end is arguing with himself.

The $85 was the figure touted for the WinRT license + the Cloud-based Office which is a reasonable figure, but it's also one that Microsoft won't be paying. Apparently these weren't your small OEMs either. Considering Acer's, HP's and Dell's uproar (Microsoft's biggest OEMs), you have to figure they have some legitimate points.

Personally, I'd like to see a $199 winRT tablet because at that price it makes sense. It lacks the legacy support of the Surface Pro and it will get sectioned off from a lot of applications built for x86, Metro and desktop both. But you completely missed his argument in stating the trouble that Microsoft has to deal with with respect to its OEM ties. MS makes a LOT of money off their OEMs, stabbing them in the back for a $199 tablet just doesn't seem to be worth it.
 
I can't see it happening. Surface RT is probably going to cost over $300 to make. Any OEM is also going to have to pay MS $85. There's no way any OEM could even come close to competing against $199.

MS would be royally screwing over all their OEM partners.
 
for $199 it would most likely be a subscription in there to something else (aka 4G cellular contract).

BladeVenom said:
I can't see it happening. Surface RT is probably going to cost over $300 to make. Any OEM is also going to have to pay MS $85. There's no way any OEM could even come close to competing against $199.

MS would be royally screwing over all their OEM partners.
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like they haven't screwed their customer base with Windows 8.....
 
BladeVenom said:
I can't see it happening. Surface RT is probably going to cost over $300 to make. Any OEM is also going to have to pay MS $85. There's no way any OEM could even come close to competing against $199.

MS would be royally screwing over all their OEM partners.
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That $85 RT license fee is not more valid than this $199 Surface rumor.
 
$199 with a 2 year commitment to Microsoft <Insert Online Subscription Something-or-other>. $349 if you opt for no contract.

That is my prediction as the only feasible way that Microsoft could pull off a $199 Surface RT. Even with the subscription gimmick the American consumer is dumb enough to see it as a good deal. It would be a very smart move for Microsoft. They would get lots of tablets moved, which would jump start the Windows 8 App development. In addition they would get a strong base of people using their new SkyDrive and other cloud services. It would be a plan for the long haul, something they have shown they are willing to do with hardware in the Xbox360.
 
Erasmus354 said:
$199 with a 2 year commitment to Microsoft <Insert Online Subscription Something-or-other>. $349 if you opt for no contract.

That is my prediction as the only feasible way that Microsoft could pull off a $199 Surface RT. Even with the subscription gimmick the American consumer is dumb enough to see it as a good deal. It would be a very smart move for Microsoft. They would get lots of tablets moved, which would jump start the Windows 8 App development. In addition they would get a strong base of people using their new SkyDrive and other cloud services. It would be a plan for the long haul, something they have shown they are willing to do with hardware in the Xbox360.
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It won't be just American consumers....
 
They tried market penetration with IE, they got sued...

I'd be very surprised if it came in below $399
 
Wiseguy2001 said:
They tried market penetration with IE, they got sued...

I'd be very surprised if it came in below $399
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The reason they got sued, was because they already had the majority of the market, not because they tried to enter the market with ie.

This is a different scenario.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
The reason they got sued, was because they already had the majority of the market, not because they tried to enter the market with ie.

This is a different scenario.
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At the time IE had low market share though. I think that was the analogy he was making.

Selling a $199 tablet would be brilliant as I think MS could make up a lot of market share quickly, and get itself established in the mobile space for a change, which appears to be a necessary goal going forward. But as Peter Bright pointed out, it could negatively affect their OEM partnerships. The other downside is that MS would have to make up a lot of the difference through their app store, which is risky. But also they would pretty much tie themselves to a low price point right out of the gate.
 
Wiseguy2001 said:
They tried market penetration with IE, they got sued...

I'd be very surprised if it came in below $399
Click to expand...

Digital Viper-X- said:
The reason they got sued, was because they already had the majority of the market, not because they tried to enter the market with ie.

This is a different scenario.
Click to expand...

jwcalla said:
At the time IE had low market share though. I think that was the analogy he was making.
Click to expand...

More specifically, they were leveraging their effective monopoly in the OS space to shoehorn their way into the browser market, bundling and subsidizing their browser to give an unfair advantage versus their competitors' products.

Replace "browser" with "tablet" and certain parallels emerge... though it's an imperfect comparison. Still worrying, though.
 
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I'll believe it when I see it (unless it's a small tablet, using junk hardware or they're selling it at a loss).

However, it does make a little sense. No other tablet maker has been sucessful in catching up to the iPad. Even cheaply priced tablets are struggling to make a dent. If anyone has the marketing power and bank account to make it happen, it's certainly MS.

With that said, aren't these things limited to Metro apps only? So essentially what's available on windows mobile market?
 
dr.stevil said:
With that said, aren't these things limited to Metro apps only? So essentially what's available on windows mobile market?
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Yes, because they're ARM chips they lack the desktop x86 functions. Also, they'll be strictly limited to ARM compliant applications within the Metro store, meaning anything legacy x86 is incompatible as well as anything built upon x86 within the Metro store as well. At $199 such a tablet makes sense, because it's cordoned off from the majority of what Microsoft offers as far as apps and software compatibility goes. Any higher and people will be really disappointed. It would be like Google offering the Nexus 7 but only compatible with a certain minority of applications. The real question is why you'd want one over a Nexus 7 if you can't use the desktop function or desktop applications and only certain ARM-based Metro applications. With a competing Nexus 7 you don't have such restrictions. Maybe you really really want a crappy cloth keyboard and cloud-based office?
 
This brings up a similar question (sorry if threadjacking): how come Google didn't get a massive negative response from OEMs when it released the Nexus 7 at $199? Was it because they did it with Asus? It ruined the prospects for other 7" Android tabs at that price range (especially the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 which only came out a month or two earlier).
 
Pylon said:
This brings up a similar question (sorry if threadjacking): how come Google didn't get a massive negative response from OEMs when it released the Nexus 7 at $199? Was it because they did it with Asus? It ruined the prospects for other 7" Android tabs at that price range (especially the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 which only came out a month or two earlier).
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Because Android is technically free. Google also went to the OEMs to get the tablet made, ultimately choosing Asus. Microsoft is charging for winRT and win8 and their products won't have an "Asus" or whatever OEM brand on it because they're making it themselves (or rather Foxconn or whoever makes the parts is).
 
Honestly I can't wait to see if this tanks the OEM business (highly unlikely) or gets us better products in the end. If it launches at $200, I'll subsidize my own CPU upgrade to a lower end product just to afford this.
 
Pylon said:
This brings up a similar question (sorry if threadjacking): how come Google didn't get a massive negative response from OEMs when it released the Nexus 7 at $199? Was it because they did it with Asus? It ruined the prospects for other 7" Android tabs at that price range (especially the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 which only came out a month or two earlier).
Click to expand...

Windows is a much more valuable business than Android tablets to these OEMs, that's the main issue.
 
pelo said:
Yes, because they're ARM chips they lack the desktop x86 functions. Also, they'll be strictly limited to ARM compliant applications within the Metro store, meaning anything legacy x86 is incompatible as well as anything built upon x86 within the Metro store as well. At $199 such a tablet makes sense, because it's cordoned off from the majority of what Microsoft offers as far as apps and software compatibility goes. Any higher and people will be really disappointed. It would be like Google offering the Nexus 7 but only compatible with a certain minority of applications. The real question is why you'd want one over a Nexus 7 if you can't use the desktop function or desktop applications and only certain ARM-based Metro applications. With a competing Nexus 7 you don't have such restrictions. Maybe you really really want a crappy cloth keyboard and cloud-based office?
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Not to thread jack, but would the Surface Pro therefore also be limited to x86 only apps, or could it run the ARM based apps as well?
 
E^vol said:
Not to thread jack, but would the Surface Pro therefore also be limited to x86 only apps, or could it run the ARM based apps as well?
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Windows 8 is x86 only and does it all, traditional desktop software and WinRT apps. Windows 8 is a proper superset of Windows RT.
 
Pylon said:
This brings up a similar question (sorry if threadjacking): how come Google didn't get a massive negative response from OEMs when it released the Nexus 7 at $199? Was it because they did it with Asus? It ruined the prospects for other 7" Android tabs at that price range (especially the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 which only came out a month or two earlier).
Click to expand...

Because google doesn't sell andriod and MS does.
If google wants to loose money they loose it on hardware alone same would apply to OEMs.


In MS case
MS looses on hardware
but OEM's would loose on hardware and software.
 
Pylon said:
This brings up a similar question (sorry if threadjacking): how come Google didn't get a massive negative response from OEMs when it released the Nexus 7 at $199? Was it because they did it with Asus? It ruined the prospects for other 7" Android tabs at that price range (especially the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 which only came out a month or two earlier).
Click to expand...

I think it's the difference in hardware. Google is only slightly undercutting the competition, maybe by $100, with it's 7 inch 8GB tablet that has no micro SD even.

If Microsoft released the Surface, a 10 inch 32GB tablet with micro SD and HDMI, at $200 (which of course isn't happening), this is a much more severe undercutting of it's partners, probably by $300 or more.
 
It's never going to happen, so quit daydreaming. Already, MS has shown off a special new mouse and BT keyboard. The mouse cost $70. Who is going to pay that for a mouse if the laptop cost $200? Talk about joke of the week.
 
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