Microsoft preps UK Surface Pro 'pilot', tiptoes around Win 8 OEM rivals

Microsoft is still minding its Ps and Qs with OEMs competitors pals as it prepares to run a pilot for Surface Pro distribution in the UK. As revealed by us last week, Microsoft is talking to five resellers in Blighty - Insight, Kelway, Misco, SCC and Computacenter - about taking the slab to business customers. It also planning …

[Anonymous Coward]

two-and-a-half-hour queues

so that's why there's been a sudden flood of those slabs on ebay, I get it now! ;)

[dogged]

Re: two-and-a-half-hour queues

Not at $99, there hasn't. Not in the UK at any rate.

If there had been, we'd have snapped up a couple as test machines.

[hplasm]

"It is a pilot, the reason we are calling it a pilot..."

So we can blame 'pilot error' when it crashes and burns.

[Ian 62]

Nice PR spin

A queue doesnt ALWAYS mean high demand, it just means limited supply.

But you can make it sound like it's indemand.

" OMG!! 2 hour queues and theres plenty to go round! "

Therefore that MUST mean they're really really popular.

Or...

It means theres one person at one desk personally handling each transaction.

[Mr Spock]

Re: Nice PR spin

A queue doesnt ALWAYS mean high demand, it just means limited supply.

But you can make it sound like it's indemand.

But you can only fool people once. And nobody was fooled last time.

[Dentex74]

Hmm, obviously the direct approach worked well....

If like me you had a the "pleasure" of trying to buy the Pro directly from the on-line store you would be ever so grateful at the slightest hope of a channel distribution for this device... http://wp.me/p337vS-fA.

MS got the distribution and fulfilment so disastrously wrong that they should be begging for help when it comes to shifting this and future devices to avoid further embarrassment.

[SharePoint-Bytes]

Okay I get the fashion on here for hating surface but... What's not to like at the price? In the case of the Surface Pro it's essentially a quality Ultra-book selling for buttons!?

[Flocke Kroes]

The thing I do not like is secure boot

If those were real prices I could buy at, I would look for instructions for installing Linux and reviews of the hardware. I just found this:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/265644/dual-boot-surface-pro-with-ubuntu

Perhaps these machines will actually be useful for something other than a door stop when the low prices are available to penguins.

[Dave 126]

>Okay I get the fashion on here for hating surface but... What's not to like at the price?

Nothing- just the fact that you can't get it at that price unless you are at either of the events mentioned in the article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Crafty

"Both the Surface RT and Pro have been slashed in price to $99 and $399 respectively for the 16,000 attendees of Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston this week and for those at the Build developer shindig recently."

By charging, they can class these as sales. I KNEW someone had to have bought one somwhere...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Crafty

Yeah, because no other IT company has ever discounted a product for their developers, and they've definitely never called these sales.