Over at our sister site, Windows 8 Update, Fahid Ali wrote today about the latest arrival of 50 Surface Pro 128GB tablets to Seattle’s University Village store, and how things only lasted for about 60 minutes, actually a little less.
We continue to hear about how the 128GB model of the Surface Pro is selling like gangbusters. On the other side of things, the 64GB model seems easy enough to get.
You have to wonder: success or shortage? I mean, the Surface RT had a similar sell out scenario. We continued to hear about the second that the Surface RT showed up it was sold again, only to learn that overall sales for the Surface RT weren’t all that astounding.
Fool me once, shame on me. So naturally I’m skeptical about how well the Surface Pro is actually doing, especially with reports popping up that Microsoft had low stock to begin with. So what’s going on?
Honestly, I think that demand for the Surface Pro is higher than Microsoft anticipated, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that demand is THAT high – just higher than they planned for. More than likely, the numbers brought to stores for the Surface Pro were factored by a few things: previous interest in other full Windows 8 tablets, Surface RT’s sales, etc. Whatever the factors, Microsoft didn’t get them right.
Why the Shortage?
Okay, the “Why” is that they underestimated, but it goes beyond that. Honestly, Microsoft probably felt more consumers would just settle with the cheaper 64GB model of the Surface Pro and use microSD, cloud storage or an external HDD.
This makes sense I suppose, but remember that a good chunk of the purchasers of the Surface Pro are business users. Many of these users are even having their tablets paid for by the company they work for. For a business, it makes more sense to fork out a little extra cash and get the most storage bang for your buck – even if many modern businesses don’t store much on the local drives and store more on the network or cloud.
Outside of that, I’m sure that many more casual users are interested in the Surface Pro than Microsoft anticipated. Instead of buying a laptop and a tablet, why not get both for a cheaper overall price? As for the battery life complaints, most 10-inch tablet users actually tend to keep their bigger tablets at home and bring their 7-inchers and smartphones with them on the go, so I personally don’t see this as a huge issue. Again, that comes to personal preference.
Regardless of the reasons, Microsoft needs to ramp things up quickly or would-be Surface Pro buyers might lose interest and instead turn to another Windows 8 tablet.
I gave a few ideas as to why the Surface Pro MIGHT have be in short supply, but I likely just scratched the surface (pun intended). So I’ll ask you this: Why do you think Microsoft wasn’t prepared? Do you think this is just a normal launch glitch and will be shorted out within the coming weeks? Share your thoughts below.
