Microsoft Surface Pro's $100 Price Cut is Made Permanent

Earlier this summer, Microsoft cut the price of the Surface Pro. Originally billed as a back-to-school sale, Microsoft announced a $100 price cut in early August, and the price was supposed to go back up on August 29. However, instead of climbing back up to the original price, Microsoft on Thursday confirmed that the price cut would be permanent.

Speaking to AllThingsD, the company lauded the consumer response to the new pricing but made no mention of how the new prices have affected sales of the machines.

"The customer response to recent Surface pricing and keyboard-cover promotions has been exciting to see, and we are proud to begin rollout of Surface Pro, Touch Cover and Surface RT bundles at even more affordable prices starting August 29," a Microsoft spokesperson said. "People who buy Surface love Surface, and we're eager for more people to get their hands on this incredible device."

Launched with Windows 8, the Surface line hasn't exactly been the roaring success Microsoft had hoped for, and a permanent discount doesn't exactly reflect well on the brand. Microsoft in July revealed that it was forced to write down $900 million for Surface RT due to a lack of sales, and then finally admitted that both Surface RT and Surface Pro had only generated $853 million in revenue since their debut in October 2012. However, that's not to say Microsoft is giving up on Surface. Nvidia this month confirmed that it's working on the second generation of Surface RT. No doubt there will be another Surface Pro, too.

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  • stevejnb
    Good. Great product and, while reasonably priced based on hardware standards, it needs a bit of a price perk to make an impact - especially with the $100+ price of the type/touch covers. Another $100 wouldn't hurt, or just drop the bloody price on those covers... MS has a good product but are too focused on making a profit to make a beachhead into the mobile market.
    Reply
  • Novuake
    I really would not mind one of these... I do not even understand how they are not selling?
    Reply
  • stevejnb
    Novu... People think "tablet" and they think "iPad." People go in to look at tablets and they see some other Microsoft product that costs a hell of a lot more sitting there. They don't necessarily realize that it's in a whole other league hardware wise... They just know that the word "tablet" = cheap PC for media consumption, a bit of e-mail and web browsing, maybe a document in class. The general mindset isn't that "A tablet could replace my PC."

    May change, but that's where we stand. If MS wants to change this mentality, they better stop taking a loss.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    11453666 said:
    I do not even understand how they are not selling?
    You can get decent laptops for cheaper with more storage, RAM, keyboard, etc. included instead of sold separately or as a beefy premium option.

    Making the drop permanent and promising to have keyboard-cover bundles brings it closer to the price point of similarly spec'd laptops. Now that makes the choice between Surface Pro and a generic laptop a little easier - or harder depending on how you look at it.

    This isn't too different from how Google decided to throw everything but the kitchen sink at introducing the N7 and N10 as promotional vehicles for Google Play to kickstart production of Android games, apps and filling their music/video selection... except Microsoft needed a year to realize that if they wanted to establish their Surface/SurfacePro brand and Windwos Store, they would have to aim for low profit per initial sale to seed the market.

    Lets see if Microsoft now has a late-bloomer on their hands.
    Reply
  • sean1357
    Surface Pro is heavy and not much app at MS store to compare Apple or Google. Microsoft should look at the design and user interface, but I think it's too late for Apple with iPad second, third, and fourth generation....
    Reply
  • dimar
    Microsoft have ruined Windows 8 acceptance in general, which is probably the reason those tablets are not selling well. If Win8 had had the same excitement as Windows 7, those tablets would had been sold like unimaginably delicious hotcakes. Everyone pretty much knows who to blame.
    Reply
  • w8gaming
    11453865 said:
    Surface Pro is heavy and not much app at MS store to compare Apple or Google. Microsoft should look at the design and user interface, but I think it's too late for Apple with iPad second, third, and fourth generation....

    The point of owning is Surface Pro is not to run app from MS store. If you are going to pay that much for a Pro model your main objective will be running desktop applications first, new Metro UI app is just a bonus.
    Reply
  • w8gaming
    11453666 said:
    I really would not mind one of these... I do not even understand how they are not selling?

    First of all, to say Surface Pro is "not selling", it is only in the sense that compare to the unit sales of iPad, it is "not selling". I suspect Surface Pro sells just as well as any other ultrabook in the market. It is a premium priced device with different usage in mind, which the market has shown that it is not as mainstream as iPad class of device that does less, performs slower, but priced much lower. But we cannot look at the acceptance of Surface Pro based on its unit sales alone, because it needs to compete with similar tablets offering, as well as ultrabooks or even laptops from other vendors. The combined unit sales of such device class is still quite substantial, it is just that unlike iPad which is sold by a single company, the market share is shared by many vendors. The fact that almost every vendors out there give up on RT devices but will continue to make Windows 8 pro tablets has shown that the vendors know there are many people buying such devices. Also remember Surface Pro has given other vendor 3 months headstart, and in other parts of the world, sometimes even as much as 9 months headstart. Many people who are interested in such devices already bought similar tablet from other vendors before Microsft made theirs available. Now that Haswell has been released, many vendors have switched to the new CPU which has much better battery running time than Surface Pro. Microsoft really needs to speed up in their product rollout if they really wants to become a "device company".
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    Reduction applies to the education sector too, in the UK the 64Gb Pro is £575 and the 32Gb RT is £251. Not long ago some people were saying that is exactly the price cut they were waiting for, so what are you waiting for?
    Reply
  • Grandmastersexsay
    Great journalism here. You either forgot or intentionally omitted what they actually cost. Amateur hour either way. Don't you think the device's actual price might be pertinent to the story?
    Reply