Acer begs Microsoft to 'think twice' about Surface tablet

Is there a company that better epitomizes the problems Microsoft has had over the last five years? Acer consistently puts out inferior quality machines made up of the cheapest components they can find. Then they install bloatware.<p>Consumers are getting the picture too. Acer's revenues have fallen for six straight quarters.<p>Acer shouldn't look for alternatives to Windows, (What alternatives!? I can't imagine what Acer would do to a Linux distro.) it should stop making bad products.

I smell fear. I am not a Microsoft fan-boy... far from it, but I have been wondering for years if Microsoft is ever going to drop the hammer and get some control on their software distribution by designing hardware with the intention of allowing the software to run as intended.<p>For many years I watched the bloatware that totally ruined the user experience, especially at the turn of the century.<p>Can Microsoft make quality hardware to compliment their software and in turn make their software feel "better" to the many of those who have turned away from it? They have the capital to figure it out.<p>The only "huge negative impact" that I can see from this is pushing the hardware manufacturers to innovate harder and do better with the use and distribution of the software. It is going to thin the herd for sure. I think this is necessary for Microsoft to gain some control over the user experience.<p>Yes, resellers and hardware manufacturers helped make Microsoft the huge corporation it is today, but the time has come. I think Microsoft only has to gain from this--if they do the hardware right.

Please Microsoft! If you provide consumers with a high quality first-party experience, they might start to realize that we've been selling them shitware all along! Think Twice about this!!

Microsoft is leaving its options open by developing its own slate hardware. By doing so it will obtain direct feedback from consumers and distribution channels in order to choose between the two general long term strategies - keeping the hardware in house like Xbox or moving to a software ecosystem model like Windows Phone.<p>When discussing Microsoft strategy, it is hard to over emphasize how long term their view tends to be. They spent a billion or more on Kin just to learn the mobile market. They spent billions on the Red Ring of Death to retain consumers. Its hard to recognize this philosophy because it is so different from the quarter to quarter strategies of the companies to which they are unfavorably compared - Wall Street would have thrown a tantrum if Apple had spent a billion on Ping in order to learn "Social". Just look at the heat Google took for Wave.

My mother once bought an Acer laptop. I've never seen a computer with more bloatware on it.

I would really <i>love</i> for MS to get in to the full hardware game, both on tablets, but also maybe smaller phone-form devices and maybe eventually desktops/laptops. Let them create what they consider the 'best' MS/windows experience. It might bring some people back to the MS camp, assuming it's good (and I suspect it would be).<p>The damage done to the MS brand over the past decade or so by manufacturers bundling crap on cheap hardware is enormous, and it may take MS either getting in to the hardware game directly, or tightening control over what can have Windows shipped on it, before we see a reversal of that. The same thing is playing out with Android - not sure why they didn't learn from the MS story.<p>This is not suggesting everyone should always and only make their own hardware, but without sufficient quality controls in place, the brand gets tarnished pretty quickly.

Acer should be scared. I've already sworn them off after every Acer PC myself or a friend has owned in the past six years has failed in one way or another long before it should have. Anyone that knows how to make quality hardware has much less to worry about.

Acer basically dropped the ball on Tablets by firing their Italian CEO who wanted to invest heavily in touch and tablet design and double engineering staff. You reap what you sow JT Wang.<p><a href="http://www.cultofmac.com/94454/acer-former-ceo-trade-blame-for-low-end-pc-sales-slump/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cultofmac.com/94454/acer-former-ceo-trade-blame-f...</a><p><i>The firm did not blame its sales slowdown on Acer chairman JT Wang, who in 2010 predicted the iPad share of the tablet market would plummet from 100 percent to 30 percent as soon as alternative devices appeared. So far, with Motorola, RIM, HP and others introducing rival tablets, the iPad market share still hovers around 80 percent.<p>Acer also did not blame its sales slowdown on its own strategy reversal, first embracing the idea of volume, then rejecting it when the company’s founder, Stan Shih, announced a more Apple-like future. PC makers “should not single-mindedly pursue volume growth, and should extend its operation to the field of service, just like Apple has done.”</i>

I really hope the reaction by third party hardware partners is to start partnering with linux distros.<p>It would be great to have cheaply priced computers as an alternative to the Mac and upcoming MS ecosystems.

Sounds like a healthy relationship.

It sounds like MS hasn't gotten its way in the tablet and mobile OS market (by loosing to Android as the vendor choice), so it has tried to enter this end of the market itself. For the vendors to turnaround and say, stay off our new turf, or we might not choose your OS in the laptop and PC market is a ballsy move.<p>This move by MS might be their final demise (fingers crossed).