3 ms·

I was surprised. Did they forget to mention about price and availability? Poor PR from MSFT.

by dm8 14y ago

mgkimsal 14y ago
From what I can recall, that's how many tech product launches go. Sometimes you get "3rd quarter" estimates, but I don't recall too many vendors outside of Apple giving exact shipping dates.
- dm8 14y ago
  I understand that. All the cool tech/UI aside, most of the people want to know price and availability. When iPhone was first released, it launched with $299. Price alone created so much buzz like "all this awesome things at just $299, I'm getting one". Now I'm definitely interested in this product but if they price it $1000 I may or may not buy. Why not declare price right away? I'm sure they have nailed down the price. So whats the point in holding onto that.
  - lazerwalker 14y ago
    That's factually untrue. The iPhone launched at $499/$599 for 4gb/8gb models, and then a few months later had the 4gb discontinued and the 8gb dropped to $399, arguably due in no small part to people complaining how expensive it was. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#U.S._release http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#U.S._rele...]
- greedo 14y ago
  And this is why people will forget about this unless MS spends a bushel trying to keep it in view. This announcement just seems so clumsy. Microsoft just finished with TechEd last week, and could have announced it then. But they want to vaporware for a bit longer. Seriously, no release date, no pricing, no real demo (rendered images instead), no software announcements other than Netflix and Office. This type of product announcement might have worked pre-Internet, but nowadays people expect to be able to find out concrete details and pricing once a product is announced. No demo units shipped to Walt Mossberg or David Pogue, or even a John Dvorak... This isn't like the Zune however. The Zune was peripheral to Microsoft's core business. This is central to where a large portion of the computing market is headed. If this takes two or three revisions to gain traction, then Microsoft might be too late.

I was surprised. Did they forget to mention about price and availability? Poor PR from MSFT.

by dm8 14y ago

I was surprised. Did they forget to mention about price and availability? Poor PR from MSFT.

From what I can recall, that's how many tech product launches go. Sometimes you get "3rd quarter" estimates, but I don't recall too many vendors outside of Apple giving exact shipping dates.

dm8 14y ago
I understand that. All the cool tech/UI aside, most of the people want to know price and availability. When iPhone was first released, it launched with $299. Price alone created so much buzz like "all this awesome things at just $299, I'm getting one". Now I'm definitely interested in this product but if they price it $1000 I may or may not buy. Why not declare price right away? I'm sure they have nailed down the price. So whats the point in holding onto that.
- lazerwalker 14y ago
  That's factually untrue. The iPhone launched at $499/$599 for 4gb/8gb models, and then a few months later had the 4gb discontinued and the 8gb dropped to $399, arguably due in no small part to people complaining how expensive it was. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#U.S._release http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#U.S._rele...]
greedo 14y ago
And this is why people will forget about this unless MS spends a bushel trying to keep it in view. This announcement just seems so clumsy. Microsoft just finished with TechEd last week, and could have announced it then. But they want to vaporware for a bit longer. Seriously, no release date, no pricing, no real demo (rendered images instead), no software announcements other than Netflix and Office. This type of product announcement might have worked pre-Internet, but nowadays people expect to be able to find out concrete details and pricing once a product is announced. No demo units shipped to Walt Mossberg or David Pogue, or even a John Dvorak... This isn't like the Zune however. The Zune was peripheral to Microsoft's core business. This is central to where a large portion of the computing market is headed. If this takes two or three revisions to gain traction, then Microsoft might be too late.