Any bets?
Anyone want to make a bet that 1 month after Microsoft releases its Surface tablet, we will have no idea how many they sold the opening weekend? That we'll have to rely on third-party estimates and guesses?
That 3 months later Microsoft still won't have released sales figures?
When they finally get around to releasing some numbers, they'll tell us how many units they've 'sold' to retail outlets and not how many were sold to actual end users?
Why am I so certain that Microsoft will act in this manner? Easy:
That's the kind of BS they've pulled with the Kin, Zune, and Windows Phone 7.
Even now, it's hard to track down the real sales numbers for those products.
Notice that MS had no problem tracking and reporting sales numbers for Kinect when it came out. Every time you turned around you were hit with another story about how well it was selling, and how many units had flown off the shelves.
This time, they haven't even waited for the Surface's release to start their obfuscating. Try finding any meaningful information:
What's the battery life while watching movies, surfing the web, on standby?
How much space is the OS going to take up?
What's the price?
What kind of warranty will it have?
How and where will you get apps?
How well does it perform compared to the competition?
How will it get its updates?
How will you get the kickstand replaced when (not if) it breaks?
Has anyone actually seen anyone type using the keyboard cover? It represented one of the biggest selling points for the Surface, yet not one of the presenters did any actual typing. They didn't explain how the Surface and keyboard communicate with each other, nor did they talk about the keyboards power source. Does it have a separate battery, and if so, how do you charge it? Why weren't any of the tech reporters allowed to have any hands-on time? That all leads me to believe the keyboard was a mock up and not a functional item. Pretty ballsy, if you ask me.
So - OK then. Anyone willing to bet me that 1 year from release date the Surface will have been sunk?