Microsoft has confirmed it cancelled plans to release a Surface Mini tablet in the spring.
During
Tuesday's quarterly earnings call, CFO Amy Hood said that part of the
reason revenue from the company's line of Surface tablets took a hit was
because it had decided to kill an unreleased product.
"During
the quarter, we reassessed our product roadmap and decided not to ship a
new form factor that was under development," Hood said. While she
doesn't identify the Surface Mini by name, other reports claimed
Microsoft has scrapped plans to release the tablet late in the game,
then the company accidentally confirmed the product's existence in a
user manual that referenced the Mini directly.
The
decision to take the ax to the Surface Mini was reportedly influenced
by CEO Satya Nadella, whose bid to reshape Microsoft includes a clear
focus on productivity. While the company has many consumer-facing
products (notably Xbox),
Windows
devices have been criticized as not serving small-screen tablet market
as well as iPads and Android models, and market statistics reflect this.
The
small-screen tablet market has grown quickly over the past two years,
but Windows didn't support those designs until fall 2013 with the
release of Windows 8.1. It appeared inevitable that the Surface line
would get a Mini version after that, but since smaller tablets are
inherently more about consumption than productivity, such a product
wouldn't fit with Nadella's vision of the new Microsoft.
When
Microsoft held the next Surface product launch in May, it instead
announced the Surface Pro 3, a 12-inch tablet that runs full Windows 8.1
Pro, powered by an Intel Core processor.
Other
manufacturers have filled the void with small Windows tablets, and most
run Windows 8.1, powered by Intel Atom chips. Lenovo was reportedly
going to stop selling small Windows tablets in the U.S. due to lack of
demand, but the company quickly reaffirmed its commitment to
different-size tablets and said it would bring a new small Windows
tablet to the American market before the end of 2014.
Posted by : Gizmeon
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