Niterider4
Active Member
It is very interesting to me that the volume of new posts regarding bugs and issues with the Surface Book has now dwindled to almost nothing. This reflects my own experience, where my SB is now functioning as I expected it to function and as it was advertised to function.
That leaves me wondering what would have happened if Microsoft had waited six months to release the new Surface. What if they conducted proper product testing and quality control, ironed out all the bugs, driver issues, and firmware problems, and released a great product right out of the gate?
No doubt they would have lost six months of sales revenue. But hundreds of thousands of people would have been spared a frustrating, time consuming and often infuriating experience, product returns would have been a fraction of what they were, customer service could have been dealing with other issues (or no issues), and all those people would have much greater faith and confidence in the Microsoft and Surface brands, for a long, long time to come.
For me, it comes down to the fact that Microsoft must have known. Bugs obviously happen, and drivers are often problematic, but Microsoft clearly made the decision to sell the Surface Book knowing that users would have exactly the brutal experience that many of us did have. I can live with a company that has an unexpected hiccup with a product launch and deals with it professionally and responsibly. I have much greater difficulty with a company that cynically launches a product knowing it is deeply flawed - that is a calculus that places Microsoft's profits well ahead of my best interests. It may have worked this one time, but is is unlikely to work again (at least on me).
Was inflicting the half-baked Surface Book on consumers worth the incremental revenues? I don't really know. I wonder if Microsoft really knows. Maybe I'll forget the terrible experience that was the Surface Book for the first six months I owned it. Probably I won't.
That leaves me wondering what would have happened if Microsoft had waited six months to release the new Surface. What if they conducted proper product testing and quality control, ironed out all the bugs, driver issues, and firmware problems, and released a great product right out of the gate?
No doubt they would have lost six months of sales revenue. But hundreds of thousands of people would have been spared a frustrating, time consuming and often infuriating experience, product returns would have been a fraction of what they were, customer service could have been dealing with other issues (or no issues), and all those people would have much greater faith and confidence in the Microsoft and Surface brands, for a long, long time to come.
For me, it comes down to the fact that Microsoft must have known. Bugs obviously happen, and drivers are often problematic, but Microsoft clearly made the decision to sell the Surface Book knowing that users would have exactly the brutal experience that many of us did have. I can live with a company that has an unexpected hiccup with a product launch and deals with it professionally and responsibly. I have much greater difficulty with a company that cynically launches a product knowing it is deeply flawed - that is a calculus that places Microsoft's profits well ahead of my best interests. It may have worked this one time, but is is unlikely to work again (at least on me).
Was inflicting the half-baked Surface Book on consumers worth the incremental revenues? I don't really know. I wonder if Microsoft really knows. Maybe I'll forget the terrible experience that was the Surface Book for the first six months I owned it. Probably I won't.
