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Microsoft Nixes Channel Partners for Surface Pro Debut

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http://www.thevarguy.com – Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Surface Pro tablet (read The VAR Guy’s review) will go on sale Feb. 9 at the vendor’s retail stores in the United States and Canada, retailers Staples and Best Buy and online in a distribution strategy mirroring the one it deployed for its Surface RT device. In short, that means channel partners are left out of the mix. It’s difficult to figure why but that’s the deal, at least for now. Surface Pro configured with 64GB of storage will be priced starting at $899, some $70 higher than Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) asking price for a similarly equipped iPad. The 12 (IT news)

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Submitted by niaobid on 01/23/2013

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Right now the only yardstick Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) channel partners have to gauge whether the software-turned-hardware giant will let them sell the impending Surface Pro tablet is what’s happened (actually, what hasn’t happened) so far with Surface RT–as in nothing, nada, zilch for the channel. By that measure, partners’ chances to sell Surface Pro aren’t promising.

Maybe, as it turns out, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) isn’t all that happy with Surface RT sales figures so far for this quarter.

Four months after Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) displayed its upcoming Surface tablet, the software-turned-hardware maker released details on the device’s pricing scheme, with the basic 32GB version starting at $499, a similar configuration bundled with a touch cover priced at $599 and, at the high-end, a 64GB model priced at $699. Surface will be available Oct.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is striving to restock retailers with Surface Pro 128GB tablets this week. But even before the latest round of Windows 8 tablets arrives, some pundits are calling on the software giant to develop a Surface Pro Mini Tablet to counter Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad Mini.

Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Surface Pro tablet is starting to catch on with some technology execs, many of whom say they are buying the tablet as a single-device replacement for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPads and traditional notebooks. Indeed, The VAR Guy spotted growing Surface Pro interest at this week’s CharTec Service Operations Academy in Bakersfield, Calif.

It’s about damn time. Microsoft announced the Surface product family on June 18th. After eight months of waiting, Microsoft announced that on February 9, the fully-capable, Windows 8-packing, Intel-powered, actually-really-novel Surface 8 Pro will finally hit stores in the U.S. and Canada. The Surface Pro is the big daddy in the Surface family.

Less than six weeks from debuting the Surface tablet, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) first branded hardware device ever, chief executive Steve Ballmer still is eerily tight-lipped on the vendor’s pricing, marketing and distribution plans. In an interview with the Seattle Times, Ballmer called 2012 “the most epic year” in Microsoft history — referring to the plethora of updates and services

Staples (NASDAQ: SPLS) remains “excited” about Windows 8, but the U.S. retailer says the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) operating system and even the new Surface Pro tablet are falling short of Staples’ original expectations. Demos Parneros (pictured), president of U.S. Stores, shared Staples’ views of Windows 8 and Surface Pro sales during an earnings call today.

The Microsoft Surface RT is a PC. It’s not a mobile device and it’s not a tablet, it’s a PC. And Microsoft’s first self-branded computer. It is, in short, the physical incarnation of Microsoft’s Windows 8. The expectations and competition for the Surface are daunting.