Acer Reacts, Calls Microsofts Surface Tablet Just a Ploy
Shih should know, especially since Surface would put Microsoft into direct competition with Acer and it is probably a good idea for the company founder to understand what Microsoft is up to. For now, Shih is calming concerns that Microsoft is killing its partners and said, according to Digitimes, that "Microsoft has no real intention to sell own-brand tablet PCs and the offering is an ploy to boost adoption of Windows 8."
Ship noted that Surface is simply a enthusiasm booster for vendors and an encouragement to offer their own tablets. Shih concluded that it would make no sense for Microsoft to move from the software business with big profit margins to the hardware business with tiny margins. Of course, one could wonder why Microsoft found it necessary to rebrand its original Surface product to Pixel Sense and hand it to this "ploy" product.
Perhaps it was Shih's ploy not to appear upset over Microsoft Surface tablet?
Lets see, profitable software company that handles its own hardware? Nope can't think of a single....Apple!
Just look at his face. That is all.
Errrr. no. Apple was born a hardware company, they sell hardware. They make their own software for their hardware. Here are some examples you seemed to not understand:
- Apple II (Since the 1970s)
- Macintosh
- Mac II
- PowerPC Macs
- iMac
- notebook computers
- Intel powered Macs
- Lisa
- Newton (first tablet, before the Palm Pilots)
- Monitors, keyboards, mice
- Drives
- Servers (yes, they made big box servers, they make little ones now)
- iPod (some sort of MP3/music player of some sort)
- iPhone (some awkward phone-like device, I doubt anyone will buy it)
- iPad (a modern tablet that nobody ever heard of)
Microsoft is a software company. Their early products? BASIC (used to make programs). They bought and re-sold "MSDOS". Windows, MS-office, Internet Explorer, etc... these are what is called SOFTWARE.
The only hardware they make: keyboard & mice... and of course the game consoles.... so much for being the serious business company.
MS makes money selling software FOR the xbox through licensing.
Apple makes money on every piece of hardware they sell, its profit. They make more profit with iTunes selling music, books and movies... on top of their hardware.
That being said. Acer Stop useing Alps Trackpads in your laptops! I returned mine becuase of it.
They should get a better picture of that guy unless that was taken when he made that announcment even then I think a better picture is needed. It makes them look bad. Almost purposely.
/couldnotresist
if you ever crack open an imac or macbook pro or ipad..
Foxconn makes majority of apple motherboards inside apple products
various hard drive companies makes the hard drive for iMacs/Macbook pro
Liquidmetal makes the aluminum body for the macs/macbook pro
Intel makes the processor for the macbook/macbook pro
nVidia makes the Processor for iPhone, iPod Touchs, iPadss (nVidiaTegras)
apple is just a brand.
PC manufacturers should try to keep up with better hardware. They should be able to make better hardware than MS since they have the experience. I say MS did a nice job to kick other manufacturers butt. They really needed it. Apple and MS is now pushing them towards a better product, which is a good thing.
yes, macs can offer up to 2000X1800 resolution on their screen, but it's going to be laggier than on a pc.
macs are stuck with mid-end graphics and you can't even upgrade them
In a slightly different way, Nvidia did the same thing with their 680 GPU's. Even though they only had several hundred ( just guessing, but not many! ) to sell at launch, they had to get all the reviewers to get the consumers to know that they had a better card for less money than AMD. This caused most people who were ready to shell out more than $500 for an AMD 7900 GPU to hold off on their purchase and wait for Nvidia to have more cards. This marketing definitely hurt AMD's sales even though Nvidia had almost nothing to sell for quite a while.
Microsoft is quite geniuos IMO for this tactic, but is sure to piss off everyone else.
The speculation creates the excitement and most consumers are probably willing to wait to see just how good these tablets really are..... or are not!
Let's see if Google can learn from this and take control of Android...
Uh... that is pretty much any major company, silly child. Acer is perhaps the only PC company that makes its own computer... as they own and re-badge Gateway, Packard Bell (Yes, a major brand in Europe) and eMachines). Open up a ThinkPad computer.... foxconn. HP, Dell, Sony, Lenovo, etc... all made in China from the same 1-2 companies. Nvidia and AMD GPUs coming from the same factory. Most PSUs are by name - hundreds of names most likely, but only 5 or so Chinese companies make them.
So yes, Apple is a hardware company as much as Dell and HP is. They engineer their the designs, and have companies like Foxconn make them. Foxconn is not really a hardware company. They are a manufacturing factory. They do sell some low-end stuff under their name for some reason.
Microsoft earns the bulk of it's money from selling Windows and Office at monopoly prices. That's their main business.
It's unlikely that they are going to turn a noticeable profit on the Surface tablet. They compete with all other Windows 8 tablets, Android tablets and the iPad. Microsoft has no interest in entering such a highly competitive market.
What they want is to establish their software platform so they can make money from it.
btw: Apple is primarily in the business of selling hardware. Making their own software is just a way to differentiate themselves from the competition.