“Microsoft has officially launched its Surface line of touch computer units in Australia with a focus on retail, education and finance markets,” Nadia Cameron reports for Computerworld.
Cameron reports, “At an event in Microsoft’s Sydney headquarters on Tuesday, Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division president, Robbie Bach, said the main targets would be businesses and not consumers.”
“Key verticals being targeted include education, public sector, retail, finance and other public-facing service providers,” Cameron reports. “All Surface hardware sales will go direct through the vendor and cost users $21,000 each [US$18,283.65], while software development kit (SDK) models will cost $24,500 [US$21,330.93].”
Cameron reports, “Microsoft managing director, Tracey Fellows, forecast hundreds rather than thousands of unit sales in the first 12 months.”
“The Surface device is identical in all 19 geographic markets. Its operating system is based on Windows Vista SP1 and five cameras sit beneath a ruggedised 30-inch multi-touchscreen with object recognition built-in,” Cameron reports. “It’s driven by a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and 2GB of DDR2 RAM with a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768. The unit weighs 90kg [198.4 lbs.] and measures 108 x 69 x 54cm [42.5 x 27.2 x 22.3 inches].”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wonderful news! Now Aussies can ignore Microsoft’s Big Ass Table, too!
Wanna hear something funny? Windows Vista SP1.
Let’s see: $18,284 for Microsoft’s 42.5″ x 27.2″ x 22.3″ and 198.4 pound non-portable Big Ass Table or $499 for an Apple iPad that’s just 9.56″ x 7.47″ x 0.5″ thin, weighs just 1.5 pounds and does 150,000+ more things? Oh, however would one be able to decide?
Only a dysfunctional, oblivious, foolish, suicidal mess of a company would make such a move after Apple unveiled the iPad, much less announce it to the press.
Microsoft, keep focusing on inessential boondoggles, and may Steve Ballmer remain CEO for as long as it takes!
Direct link via YouTube here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]
At that price per table they could just buy 37 iPads to be passed around. Who in their right mind would buy this gigantic piece of crap. Even the specs are unimpressive…
What that money, you could outfit an entire school with at least 60 mac Minis. Wouldn’t that be much better in terms of learning? The big ass table will be a bigger flop than the zune.
With that money coming in from sales, Ballmer can eat five hamburgers, chow down five extra large fried and wash it down with a superdupersupersize it drink every few hours. Now wait for it……wait for it……. 5 hours later… he’ll need a big ass toilet to process it all out.
“Key verticals being targeted include education, public sector, retail, finance and other public-facing service providers,”
A perfect example of asinine corporate boardroom-speak. A bunch of high-sounding words that say nothing. This pretty much sums up MicroSoft.
Wow it shits with outdated os and m$ thinks it’s smart by selling it to foreigners? Balmer: they’re austrailian, not stupid! The only dozens that’ll sell will be to the ignorant or to the naive. Either way they’ll get what’s deserved
MS had to send a couple of BATs to the Southern hemisphere to balance out the couple sold in the Northern hemisphere to keep earth rotating properly on its axis.
Really, the BAT just looks completely outdated. You would have to be a completes bend over and take me Microsoft stoogie to even buy, promote and develop for this POS. The cost is ridiculous and functionality is absolutely stupid.
The iPad is just lightyears ahead of this BAT. Imagine doing all of that and more with something so portable as the iPad and 1000% more functional. A fraction of the cost to obtain and to develop for.
I think this device would be a great platform where “Monkey Boy” Balmer could perform table dances.
Unfortunately, the popular “Big Ass Chair” accessory still hasn’t survived a signoff meeting with Ballmer.
Will they sell enough to pay for Robbie Bach’s plane ticket?
Ducking in to say,…
looking both ways…
I’d buy one if I had the money.
RUNNING OUT FOR DEAR LIFE!
I’m guessing Robbie Bach just wanted a summer vacation in sunny Sydney, to get away from the interminable gloom of Redmond.
Ten of those puppies together weigh just under a ton.
Call the chiropracter!
Shocking. The SDK alone costs $3000!!!
But will it run Crysis?
Funniest thing I read today…
Can I stream Pandora and… aww…. skip it.
How far would you have to hold an iPad in front of your face before a $499 screen looks like a $20,000 screen?
Probably better to just pass the pad to the client and let them look, than to do it on the BAT.
Is the number of sales going to become known as the BATting average?
Will they be sold to churches? Then they’ll have BATs in the belfry?
These and other questions must be answered.
Apple will sell hundreds of iPads in about, what, 15 seconds after it goes on sale?
i am looking forward to a 9.7in iPad with 1024×768. I have an old 15in Apple Cinema Display (acrylic bezel) at 1024×768 and I love it, but I use that for viewing Mail or iTunes alone.
Anything bigger and I expect way more than VGA resolution. I can’t begin to fathom “1024×768 max resolution” on a 30in screen. Sorry MS, you just killed it for me right there. I was so looking forward to a Big Awesome Table that I could serve drinks on for the cool factor.
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And for the kitchen, a refrigerator with a touch-screen door and strategically placed internal cameras so that you can see inside without opening it.
Wow, the last time I ever saw anything like the “Bad-ass table” it was one of those “Space invaders” pub table and they lasted about 9 months in the uk before the novelty wore off. Maybe that’s the sort of business ms are thinking about. Sell them to pubs and while you’re having a pint with yer mates and you suddenly remember it’s your girlfriends birthday you can simply email her some excuse from the pub via the ultra-useful “Bad-ass Table”. Woohoo, another romanced saved. Thanks ms!
$20 000!!!
Without a keyboard???
Ah Ah Ah …
What educational institution would want to waste money on the BAT? And what developer will spend US$21K just to develop for it? Yikes!!
“the main targets would be businesses and not consumers.”
We’re talking about one of those information kiosk things.. i.e., entirely different category to Apple’s upcoming media pad. So why all the scorn?
@enzos –
Why all the scorn?
Why not?
@tillot:
“But it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good business machine.” – Steve Ballmer
1. Chunky
2. Pricey
3. Crap specs for the price
4. If I am business owner / organisation, I probably would spend the money for lots more ipads for staff / users / customers and write special app for it
so wait…
does that make the os the right way up when it’s in oz then?
maybe the ozzies are being fooled and think this is the iPad!
noooo…..
Can you make a phone call on the bingass table? Does it run Flash?
This is a brilliant move by MS. The Australians will love it, after all they are beyond stupid, so it’s a perfect market for MS.
You really have to give credit where credit is due and this is sort of action is the thing that really is keeping the terrorist alliance of AENUS (Australia, England ‘N United States) together.
This will be the greatest gift the Australians receive from the States since American men came over and were able to do what obviously Australian men could not do… show Australian women a good time.
Of course that lead to the battle of Brisbane, so I wonder what the big ass table will lead to.
Who knows, maybe the military will use it to invade Tasmania.
Not the Big Ass Table! Come on, Oz! I know your poop swirls the other way in the toilet but you’ve got to be at least as smart as WE are in the Northern Hemisphere!
M$ is played; they’re done; finito. They couldn’t innovate their way out of a wet paper bag (American expression). But they’ll gladly charge you up the yin-yang for the crap they DO produce, IF you’re fool enough to pay it. DON’T DO IT!
If they sell ten of these things, it’s too many. Take that same money and send it to Haiti or something. Do some good with it.
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
P.S. “Key verticals?!?” WTF talks like that?
Just sayin’.
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
But I bet you can run Pandora
while surfing the Web on the Big Ass Table!
(just beating R2 to the punch)
Big Ass Table.
Now that’s innovation.
We have one right down the hall. It is currently broken.
Its the same resolution as the iPad. HAHA
I hear Australian resellers are having to halt orders due to “crazy interest”… oh, wait… that’s Norway and that’s the iPad. :p
Sounds great. I’ll buy one or two – for the livingroom and kitchen.
Someone’s going to mock the Big Ass Table by putting four legs on the bottom of an iPad (temporarily of course), and displaying it as a Small Ass Table.
Ohmigod! Hasn’t anyone else noticed that the weight in pounds multiplied by 10 is the Age of Ass-imilation!
kc_cramer
This is really sad. And embarassing for the boys in Redmond.
It would be nice to be able to listen to Pandora and do anything else at the same time on my iPhone.
At least I don’t have to truck the Big Ass Table around with me.
Time to get a mac mini under$1000 and a big ass screen under $ 1500 a table under $500, couple of USB cameras and boot leg an ipad software. iTable I thought of that!
Let’s be fair: the Microsoft Surface technology is pretty impressive to look at. I saw a D&D;game some grad students somewhere have been developing on it, and it’s pretty amazing.
That being said…
It’s nowhere near practical. I mean, not even in the same universe as practical. Seriously, Surface is the kind of thing you trot out as concept technology at a convention before trying to develop the ideas behind it into something practical. That Microsoft is actually trying to sell the thing speaks volumes as to their desperation.
——RM
Microsoft is obviously missing out on a great opportunity to penetrate the education market. Their marketing slogan should really be, “A Big Ass Table in Every Backpack!”
I’m getting Surface in every room in my house.
http://www.bing.com When it comes to decisions that matter, Bing & Decide
@ I’m a PC
Does that mean you’re gonna crap on one too?
Australian women are HOT. That accent gets me ever time.
They have these at Disneyland. They are bland, and horribly unresponsive. Most people move on very quickly.
@lord robin
D&D;? That’s sad. A bunch of nerds hogging for hours the one BAT within 1000 miles, in a hotel bar. They could have been playing on their ipads peer to peer without getting out of their basements. Still, if it’s a party they want, somone will write an ipad game app where you can put 12 ipads together and have a really huge playing field.
Nikon: they’re austrailian, not stupid!