Microsoft’s Surface computer is a revolutionary table-top multitouch computer that can do all sorts of fancy tricks. It makes use of a projector and five cameras to track hand movements, as well as read “Surface tags”, which are a sort of barcodes underneath objects. It’s a software+hardware package, and for 17000 USD, you’d think it’d be a treat to unbox and install one. Well, no. Near-instant update: Microsoft has replied to the blog post, and as it turns out, the unit delivered to Miller for one of his clients was scheduled to be setup by Microsoft – a service that comes standard with the device. More details inside.
Gordon Miller bought a Microsoft Surface Unit for one of his clients, and he and his team were all excited about the idea of unboxing the machine, setting it up, and playing with it. While the “playing with it” part was indeed very exciting (“a truly dynamic and stunning user experience”, see videos), the other two parts were a bit of a letdown.
For instance, it was completely unclear as to where you plug in the power cord; the documentation didn’t help, and the support centre didn’t have any idea either – they needed to check their own Surface unit. A bigger problem, however, was that the touch technology doesn’t work when setting it up – you need the included keyboard and mouse to go through the setup steps.
There were other problems as well, but once it was all setup and working, it does appear to be an amazing piece of technology, with slick software and a “stunning user experience”. Still, for such a landmark device, this simply shouldn’t happen. You should be able to just plug it in, and get going.
Let’s hope this article and the media attention it’s getting prompts the Surface team to improve their product, because I really want this to catch on, so that one day, I can have one of these things in my own living room.
And so do you.
Update: In a response to Miller, Microsoft has explained that the machine ordered by the client was supposed to be set up by Microsoft itself – a service that comes with the Surface computer. “We were delivered a unit designed to be set-up by someone else, in another time and place.”
Microsoft did say they are looking into the keyboard/mouse issue. “We want to add some goodness right there,” Microsoft said, “The user shouldn’t have to wait to be greeted with some of the excitement of the product”.
The original article was removed after Microsoft responded that professional setup was supposed to be included with the unit. Many of the points made in that article were not just about the setup and are still valid, so you can read the original cached by Google: http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:slfEjqHmIyoJ:kinesismomentum.wo…
What i find most worrisome is the fact that they removed the original article, especially since it was a fair and to the point recount on how microsoft had botched the setup experience.
Edited 2009-04-25 00:43 UTC
in the end, 17K $ still a very high price !!
Even too high for a piece of crap.
Better create it alone,
You beat me for some seconds
People die of hunger every day and this morons (well, a customer) spend 17k in this completely overpriced piece of crap? Oh the capitalism.
not only hunger
See what happens in Iraq,
Bush killed 1.5 million iraqui and counting
It has even made all the world full of crap.
I hope they pay for this new world economic crisis they created.
We are paying already !
The best thing is that the crisis is made in USA and everyone is paying for it !! Should we be responsible for their crazyness ??
They won’t pay for the new world economic crisis – we will for many years to come. Things won’t change until we have a society that is truly meritocratic so that only the best rise to the top rather than the mediocre oxygen thieves that sit there right now.
Back to the $17,000 big ass table – nice to see how companies scream and moan about how they are suffering and yet more than happy to waste a huge mount of money on pointless extravagance. These are the same sorts of people who demand the rest of the organisation to tighten the belt but they should be allowed to ride around in private jets, stay in expensive hotels and host expensive parties that add NOTHING to do the bottom line of the company.
Maybe I’m heading off too far on the Protestant frugality but I long for the day when a CEO is paid a modest amount, travels in economy class, stays in a moderately price motel that the common man would, and eat in restaurants that are priced reasonably rather than being equal to the GDP of a small island nation.
Edited 2009-04-26 04:20 UTC
You do realize that ‘companies’ isn’t a singular term right? That there are in fact many independent companies all around the world and that they don’t all operate like a borg like mass.
I also find it highly amusing that so many people think $17000 is a huge amount of money, it isn’t. It’s pocket change in the grand scheme of things. Even if we’re just talking “pointless extravagances” $17000 is an incredibly cheap “pointless extravagance”. And a surface table is probably the most useful and practical “pointless extravagance” they could have spent their money on.
Um, what do you think they do at these parties and meetings? They meet customers and suppliers, make contacts and get deals done. You know sort of stuff that IS the bottom line of most companies. Like it or not the CEO of one company playing a few rounds of golf with the CEO of some other company can easily add far more to the bottom line than thousands of man hours of hacking code.
Make me business case. I’m not saying that there aren’t CEO’s that aren’t incredibly overpaid, there are. But I don’t see how drastically slashing CEO pay across the board will have any positive effect other than temporarily appeasing the proletariat. There are plenty of countries that have CEO salaries a fraction of what the US offers, why don’t you compare and contrast the US to those countries to see what you win and what you lose.
Mind my sarcasm, but how original, attacking me on my grammar.
Just then you embody exactly what is wrong with society – “oh, don’t worry about that, its small in the grand scheme of things” whilst ignoring that it is the accumulation of many things like that which result in massive budget deficient, cost blow outs etc. The old story of looking after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.
Show me one example of extravagant parties and I’ll show you a customer who doesn’t want to put up with that crap. Contrary to popular belief, most customers whom I have spoken to don’t want to deal with the superficial displays of pomp and ceremony. Reminds me of a friend who went to so many of these lavish parties that they all blended together and become a burden to turn up to.
I’ve been in the same situation where by the 4th one I’ve been to I find the superficial friendliness so revolting that it actually turns me off doing business with that said organisation.
If the CEO needs over a million to get out of bed in the morning to go and work for your said company then they aren’t going to look out for the long term viability of your company. They are only in there for the quick buck and have no passion for what they do – I’d want a passionate CEO who sees working for my company as a long term position where long term profit growth and positive corporate citizenship is taken seriously than simply a CEO who cuts, cuts, cut, cuts and thinks that he is a bloody genius because he has cut thousands of jobs in the area where the products are made – and then find in 3-4 years time that the products are so far behind the marketplace (because of a lack of R&D – reminds me of Sun getting rid of thousands of programmers but keeping their under-performing marketing department who couldn’t market their way out of a paper bag) that one ends up going bankrupt.
You think quarter to quarter, I think 10-20 years time. I ask myself, “should I waste money now or prudently invest for the long term?”. Maybe if businesses prudently invested for the long term we wouldn’t see the alphabet soup of companies coming cup and hand to the government for bail outs.
Edited 2009-04-26 12:29 UTC
Then you aren’t a very good employee. Your personal opinion of someone should not interfere with the assessment of the chances that person might bring to your company.
I disliked many of my customers at my previous job to the bone, but I kindly helped them anyway because my boss is paying me to do so. My own opinion of the customers is wholly irrelevant.
Worst type of customer: those that friendly touch me. DO. NOT. EVER. DO. THAT.
Has nothing to do with not liking the people; the people are all right, it is the environment I can’t stand. btw I was speaking as someone who ran a company – I can assure you Thom that customers respect a person who is open and honest with them than someone who simply goes around saying the right things. You maybe able to BS your way through something but I like to be able to sleep straight in bed at night.
Customers I don’t win over instantly come back later and say, “well, the guy I went with turned out to be all talk”. The only thing I have is reputation. It can take years to build up a trusted reputation and it can be lost in a matter of days because of bad decisions and dishonesty.
Oh my, I knew you were a droid not a person. How do you guys do to reproduce with such an attitude?
When I’m in Netherlands I’m going to touch you all over and see you light up under my skilled fingers.
lol? Way to completely miss the point? That wasn’t an attack on your grammar. He was stating the obvious: that there are in fact multiple companies and not all of them are begging for government bailouts. He was doing so as a way of saying that just because some of them are doesn’t mean that the ones that are successful shouldn’t spend money.
In shorter form: he is saying that your statement: “nice to see how companies scream and moan about how they are suffering and yet more than happy to waste a huge mount of money on pointless extravagance.” is nonsensical because the companies “screaming and moaning about how they are suffering” are not necessarily the same entities that are spending “money on pointless extravagance”. You are incorrectly treating “companies” like a singular entity. Note: this is a criticism of fallacious thinking, not grammar.
Way back in the mid 90s I worked for a company that purchased desk sets for the executive branch employees that averaged about $15,000 per desk. The president and VP’s cost over $20k.
Anyways, speculation on whether the $17000 purchase of this device is exactly that; speculation. We have no knowledge of how they are going to use these devices. So it is a little presumptuous to say this is wasteful spending when we have no clue to if there will be any ROI.
It’s easier for people to be emotional about these things than reasonable.
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$17k is pretty cheap. We paid $20k for each of our Barco flat screens. 17 of them. Just the screens.
You can tell someone hasn’t worked in the real world when they think $17k is a lot of money for an IT expenditure. That’s a lot for someone sitting at home on a $1k Dell using free or cracked software to develop cheap, buggy knock offs of someone else’s program.
I have a fairly “Protestant view” of fiscal responsibility and believe every penny should be accounted for. But it’s not my responsibility to judge how another company uses theirs.
If they make frivolous expenditures frequently, they’ll pay sooner or later. If they view it as a future tech testbed, then that’s pretty darn cheap as tech investments go. And a write off.
Even capitalists should be able to find better ways to spend $17k, I mean, think of it, how much excitement can you get for $17k, other than buying this crap?
What difference do you think $17k one way or the other would make to world hunger? You’re talking like $17k is huge pile money. You should take a look at the over priced piece of crap market some day, $17k is a complete bargain in the scheme of things.
And anyway, what do you care what others do with their discretionary income? It really doesn’t affect you or anyone else. What if it turns out that the person in question had donated $27k to charity, would it be OK for him to spend some money on himself then or should we all be forbidden from spending any money on unnecessary distractions?
Typical consumism mentality. The world is melting and people keep buying stuff they don’t need. That stuff is manufactured and the manufacturing processes waste a lot of energy and pollute the environment. Keep destroying us you yankees.
Microsoft Surface will NEVER be ready for the desktop! You need to have a computer science degree to set it up! 😛
best summed up by Amanda who, when asked why it was taking us so long to get the machine up and running, and why we all looked so unhappy, replied “Oh, it’s just so…Microsofty.â€
I felt thousands of heads nodding knowingly when I read that. Some things never change.
I had the “chance” to use it in a company thay bought it, and during my test, the system has shown me an error…
So it still Microsofty…
Judging by this article and your comment it definitly doesn’t sound like it’s an Apple product.
I personally know that Surface is a great machine but the article was truly fun to read and comical too
And no, it wouldn’t change my mind about getting one. If I had extra cash I would get one.
Edited 2009-04-25 08:58 UTC