How to save Windows Surface?

No, that&#x27;s not the problem.<p>The problem is that they&#x27;ve now got three operating systems: a phone OS, a tablet OS and a productivity OS. They should have stuck to two.<p>The Surface RT should have been a branded as Metro (along with WP!). The OS should have been licensed at a low cost (not the $80 Windows fee). It should have cost $400 at release, with the cover keyboard.<p>The Surface PRO should be an Air++ - the logical evolution of the Air concept. A small, light but fully featured computer. Only they could have made it smarter. Sell it with a hub which connects the Surface to monitors + KB&#x2F;mouse whilst home. Make that switch to desktop mode automatically (with an override button, aka the orientation switch on the iPad).<p>PCs: the whole Metrofication of Windows 8 stinks of arrogance and head-up-ass syndrome. Yes, offer it as an option. Yes, bring the visual style to all of your tooling (it&#x27;s pretty!). But no, don&#x27;t do it in a way that makes working with a keyboard&#x2F;mouse painful, breaks multi-screen support, breaks a whole host of games and only works to annoy your customers.<p>Instead, offer it as an option: if the user has a touchscreen installed, ask them what they prefer. Make it easy to switch. Heck, switch automatically (like what I suggested with the Surface Pro). Heck, open that up via APIs, and let smart companies do cool stuff with it.<p>Instead we have someone senior at Microsoft trying to turn himself into Steve Jobs by copying his negative traits - stubbornness and ego - without having the brilliant vision and marketing ability to make it actually, you know, work.

In my opinion giving bounties to developers is a flawed idea. Devs may be motivated to do an app, but if the userbase is small, they will simply cut corners, and do the bare minimum, forgetting about support and further development after the bounty was acquired.<p>In other words - if there are no users, a bounty will not convince devs to build a reasonable product, as there will be no incentive to do so. If there are users within the ecosystem, then the bounty is unnecessary.<p>That is why so far the bounty programs did little to improve the ecosystems.<p>A nice idea someone posted here in the comments - instead of giving devs bounty money, Microsoft could give free cash to users left &amp; right, so they&#x27;d spend it on the apps. This would force the devs to not only do an app, but do a really good app...

Blackberry paid bounties for every app developed in their store, and they got what they paid for - developers repackaged worthless content like wallpapers in the form of &quot;apps&quot; and listed them in the thousands. They made a killing. I don&#x27;t think RIM really cared one way or the other, because they were looking to plump up that meaningless statistic that the press bandies around. Look, we have M apps in N months, check dat growth!

Microsoft does this. I have helped port a few apps that are popular on other platforms. The incentive for the company was, in fact, quite sizable.

They have tried this, I used to work for a company that makes an app for Android and iPhone. The app isn&#x27;t great in itself, but it&#x27;s part of a bigger service, and was even featured in an iPhone ad at one point.<p>Microsoft said that they&#x27;d pay $100,000 towards an app for WP7 but we said no. It sounds like a great deal, but the problem is that making the app is just the first part. You&#x27;re now on the hook for maintaining the app, providing customer support, fixing bugs, adding new features etc...<p>If MS provided a guarantee that they&#x27;d pay for the ongoing support costs, that&#x27;d be one thing, but I&#x27;d imagine that would get very expensive very quickly.

I want a surface, but everytime I get close to buying I do the same thing every time I consider buying a tablet, realize I have a laptop. Android, iOS, Surface, doesn&#x27;t matter, they&#x27;re all a luxury for people who already own a laptop or smartphone. Doesn&#x27;t help that I already have a WP8 phone.

Or you know - a better solution - allow recompiled programs to be run on the desktop and allow sideloading of metro applications. The surfaces will disappear in a matter of days.

As other users have pointed out, Microsoft actually does a lot of this. If you have a successful app MS will pay you handsomely to port it over.<p>Honest, the Surface&#x27;s problem is more perception than anything

A related but better idea is what Amazon did: create a digital currency and give it to users to buy apps with. App sellers redeem the digital money for real money from Microsoft. Now you&#x27;re still subsidizing apps but real users decide where the money goes.

Oh, I know what they should do with Surface ! I mean... I know what I wish they would do with Surface:<p>- Produce a surface pro with 13&quot; mate screen ;<p>- 128gb ssd at least of whatever performance (upgradeable) ;<p>- 4GB of RAM (not soldered, upgradeable) ;<p>- keep the same vapor-mag chassis ;<p>- 1xHDMI, at least 2xUSB (at least one 3.0), 1xVGA for every situation, 1xEthernet, 1xSD reader ;<p>- an apple track-pad. Yes, they should buy the license. Stop messing with random knockoffs of lesser quality ;<p>- no weird 1080p screen on a 13&quot; inch screen. hd+ is fine ;<p>- a quiet CPU (quiet &gt; power) with IGP.<p>For the magical price tag of 1000€, VAT included.<p>And how they should promote it:<p>- Refresh the line every year or something ;<p>- don&#x27;t talk every day about it for 10 months before the next refresh hits the drawing table ;<p>- talk about it the day before it&#x27;s available on-line and at retail store ;<p>- produce one or two versions (10 or 11 and 13 inches) and let people upgrade it the way they see fit.<p>Basically be an alternative to Apple.<p>Of course, I am only looking at it through the laptop angle. Not a care for those tablets.<p>They are sitting on enough cash to try this for 3 years. Play it on the high quality of build and a decent price tag and see what happens.

Paying developers to write apps only gets you so far, and anyway Microsoft is already doing it.<p>The main problem right now is they don&#x27;t have Metro app versions of their own flagship products. When the iPad launched, it launched with Garageband, Pages, Keynote and Numbers in the App Store and ready to go (maybe a few weeks wait for some of them). Windows 8 was rushed and botched, plain and simple. There&#x27;s just no excuse for launching without at least a plurality of native Metro versions of their flagship apps. You just can&#x27;t expect third party developers to help float a platform if you don&#x27;t bootstrap the ecosystem with apps yourself. This has been a problem for Android on tablets as well as Google only provides phone type apps. Relying on third parties means there&#x27;s a long lag between platform launch and decent app support, and that gap is filled with the sound of crickets chirping and tumbleweeds blowing through your app store. Not a good way to encourage user adoption.<p>Having said that, from everything I hear the Surface Pro 128 is a great machine. If I hadn&#x27;t bought into Mac&#x2F;iOS 6 years ago I&#x27;d be tempted.

RIM tried the same thing with the Playbook... We all know how well that worked

Both Surface tablets should&#x27;ve had the cover included from the start, and honestly the prices should be, oh, $100.00 lower than they are now. The Surfaces remind me of those 2011 era Android tablets running 3.x-decent specs, but poor apps, poor user experience, the same price or more expensive than the iPad, and were usually vaporware (or one small step up from that).<p>MSFT is in the position Android was back then, the big difference being obviously that Android has moved ahead.

The design of this site is intolerable.

microsoft should understand that mobile is a battle they can never win, they should count their blessings and focus entirely on the enterprise side of their business.