Microsoft kills Surface 2 and RT



It's no surprise that Microsoft has confirmed the death of the Surface 2 tablet. It was slow and clunky and generally underpowered and overpriced.

And anyway it's now being hugely outsold by its successor, the Surface 3, which is smooth, certainly not underpowered even if it is still on the expensive side, and is proving something of a success.

But what hasn't been said is what's  happening to the Surface RT line - the ARM processor powered tablets that no-one wanted.

Well, it's safe to say they too have been axed.

They were promoted as a kind of cut-down operating system. They came with Office built in. But they couldn't run legacy programmes and apps. Oh...and they were clunky and underpowered as well.

It's important for Microsoft to get a foothold in the still-growing tablet market. It was a late entry and touch devices are undoubtedly the way forward for the foreseeable future.

And it looks like it may be starting to succeed. The Surface 3 is selling comparatively well. That is compared with the original Surface line. Not compared with Apple, which is still king of the tablets.

Redmond is putting a lot of its hopes for the future in the Windows 10 operating system, which is largely aimed at touchscreens on tablets, smartphones and, well, anything.

But its hardware track record isn't good. It took years for the Xbox to catch on, the Zune music player died a swift death, and its first shot at mobile phones was stillborn.

Now Xbox is doing ok, but the Lumia smartphone line is stubbornly refusing to make any major impact as is the Surface tablet.

Windows 10 might well be sink or swim.

Comments