The big news at the moment seems to be the fact that the various varieties of the Surface tablets are sold at a number of US retailers. Even Microsoft’s own store lists it as unavailable more often than not.
And this, for a tablet that launched some two months back can only mean good things.
Good things in the sense that there is demand for the product, consumer interest in buying these slates. Sure it also means that Microsoft probably built less tablets this time around to keep things manageable. And this is exactly what one analyst seems to believe.
Lead analyst of operating systems at Directions on Microsoft, Michael Cherry, said that Redmond adapted a different strategy this time around:
“Microsoft produced a smaller run with the intent of selling out. They really made what they thought they could sell Good for them — they were right.”
Obviously the company is not resting on this, far from it.
Microsoft was quick to acknowledge this opportunity and promised more tablets in stores by Christmas. We should have a better idea of how much it managed to sell, and how successful these second generation Surface slates were in a few weeks from now.
But it sure beats having oodles and oodles of unsolved inventory, as happened the first time around.
All Comments
Microsoft actually underestimated demand. There is nothing wrong with not selling out. There is a lot of room between demand you can’t satisfy and overstocked supply. They could have made a few more.
Those that say, do not know and those the know, do not say. Didn’t anyone learn anything for Kung Fu.