Microsoft May Exit The Hardware Market

Hmmm, so this is what has been brewing underneath? Even though nothing has been confirmed yet, there is talk that Microsoft may give up on the Surface line, and exit the hardware market altogether.

And the reasoning behind this is the culture at Microsoft.

The company has already abandoned the Band, its activity tracker, without batting an eyelash. And is very likely to give up on phones altogether, unless we do somehow get to see the launch of the mythic Surface Phone.

And now, the next product to get the ax is likely to be Surface — the line of hardware devices that have actually seen decent success over the past few years.

As Gianfranco Lanci, corporate president and chief operating officer at Lenovo was quoted as saying, the Redmond based technology company is likely to say goodbye to devices by 2019:

“Microsoft is making a lot of money on cloud, making a lot of money on Windows and Office, but losing a lot of money on devices. And frankly speaking, it is difficult to see why they should keep losing money. For them it is a very difficult exercise to run hardware products business, they need to be careful about every single detail as the margin on this is so thin.”

Dell chief commercial officer Marius Haas does not go so far as to claim the total demise of the Surface line, but does say that Microsoft never intended to create a product for every form factor.

And for this reason, is likely to drastically reduce the focus on devices, going forward.

Finally, we have the CEO of Canalys, the analyst firm, weigh in with his own doomsday prediction, pointing to a dark future for the Surface line of devices, adding that Satya Nadella is the type of leader that will focus less on hardware, and more on software and cloud, given his expertise in these fields:

“The Surface performance is choppy; there are good quarters and bad quarters, overall they are not making money. It doesn’t make sense for them to be in this business.”

Oh dear.

Of course, Microsoft does not typically comment on such forecasts. But although the company has offered absolutely no hint of the demise of the Surface lineup, reiterating its commitment, there have been signs that show the company is actually slowly drifting away from hardware.

Lack of, and delay in, refreshes one of the bigger telltale signs that something is up.

What do you think? Will Microsoft finally pull the trigger? Or just simply reduce the overall focus?