for more click the tileMicrosoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer in a recent interview talked about many things regarding the software giant’s future, its stock conditions as well as its coming products. Ballmer also talked about the Surface pricing when he was asked ‘whether the Surface would compete with Apple’s iPad or not?’, he replied; we haven’t announced the pricing of Surface yet but, he did offer a clue for pricing to be around the $300 – $700 mark or maybe $800 not, the recently rumored $199 price.
Steve Ballmer had an interview with the Janet Tu of Seattle Times and talked about quite a things. He talked about many interesting items regarding Microsoft and its products. He talked about Microsoft’s future plans, Surface and Windows Phone 8 which he answered while pulling Nokia Lumia 920 out of his pocket.
Ballmer answered Janet’s first questions regarding iPad as:
Q: The iPad has the largest share of the tablet market, but its soft spot, it seems to me, is the price.With the Surface, are you planning to compete with the iPad on price or on features?
A: We haven’t announced pricing. I think we have a very competitive product from the features perspective. …
I think most people would tell you that the iPad is not a superexpensive device. … (When) people offer cheaper, they do less. They look less good, they’re chintzier, they’re cheaper.
If you say to somebody, would you use one of the 7-inch tablets, would somebody ever use a Kindle (Kindle Fire, $199) to do their homework? The answer is no; you never would. It’s just not a good enough product. It doesn’t mean you might not read a book on it….
If you look at the bulk of the PC market, it would run between, say, probably $300 to about $700 or $800. That’s the sweet spot.
Ballmer’s news about Surface pricing coincides with the previous reported pricing of $599 – $799.
When asked for Windows Phone 8, Ballmer pulled out a Lumia 920 out of his pocked and said; new phone with new software, Windows Phone 8 is a big challenge as we are very small player. The whole question its and answer was:
Q: Where do you see Microsoft’s position in five years, 10 years?
A: First of all, I’d say: pre-eminent technology company. I think that in a back-looking view, people would say we were a software company. That’s kind of how we were born.
I think when you look forward, our core capability will be software, (but) you’ll probably think of us more as a devices-and-services company. Which is a little different. Software powers devices and software powers these cloud services, but it’s a different form of delivery….
Doesn’t mean we have to make every device. I don’t want you to leap to that conclusion. We’ll have partners who make devices with our software in it and our services built in. … We’re going to be a leader at that.
Ballmer was very optimistic regarding Surface, Windows Phone 8 and Microsoft’s future products. At-least, we have some official guess of pricing of Surface.
This interview by Ballmer is must read one. Head over to
source link below and read the full interview yourself.
Source:
Seattle Times
