No, of course it isn't perfect. It won't be perfect until they release another version that isn't the Surface version #x. When they come out with the "MS MUI Tab" then everybody will just want their perfect old Surface back because well, because it was perfect of course
Yes a lower price certainly would have helped sell more units and yes including the keyboard in the price would also have been awesome. As an individual I would have loved it if that was the case. As a corporation though I understand that they need to look at different things. In this case MS chose to go high end instead of aiming for volume. I don't know if that was the correct move or not but there are many good reasons people have put out for doing it that make sense. They didn't want to undercut partners. They wanted a premium reference device. They didn't have the manufacturing pipeline to get economies of scale a regular hardware maker can achieve, etc. Just because it would have been nice to have a lower price or an included keyboard doesn't mean that it is the only way MS should have played it. As it turns out they are in the ball park and at a reasonable price (thus the comparison above). They aren't a 7" Chinese no name tablet but they aren't as expensive as a Lenovo Helix either.
I think MS could have done a few things to improve sales. 1) If Windows 8 had been released enough ahead of the Surface so that Win 8 was out there and people had a chance to get to know it. Preview builds aren't enough for that and releasing Win 8 and the Surface at the same time probably didn't help sales any. 2) They could have done even more to get apps in the store ahead of time. Regular people seem to care about the total app count not the apps that count. 3) They could have had much better initial advertising. Maybe they were going for the wow followed by the function but it could have been more balanced. 4) They could have had more supply in the pipeline and a more stream lined roll out. I guess that just comes from lacking hardware roll out experience. 5) They could have done a better job on some of the core apps and drivers. Updates are fine but there a a few legitimate issues that MS should have taken care of (and they still are working on some) like mail, music and pictures apps and wifi and sleep issues. I don't know that this would have helped sales but there would be other things to talk about it these had all worked better out of the box.
JP
