Microsoft's New Surface Pro Borrows From the Family to Revive Sales
May 23 2017 - 8:44AM
Dow Jones News
By Jay Greene
Microsoft on Tuesday is introducing a new Surface Pro, hoping to
revive sales of the product line after a stinging slide in the most
recent quarter.
To spruce up the tablet-laptop hybrid device, Microsoft is
borrowing features from other members of the Surface family,
including wrapping the Surface Pro's optional attachable keyboard
in the same fabric on the Surface Laptop, which the company debuted
earlier this month.
The Surface Pro also supports the Surface Dial, a hockey
puck-shaped peripheral that people can twist to scroll through
documents, adjust volume and expand or shrink images. The Dial,
introduced with the Surface Studio all-in-one PC last fall, can
also interact with the Surface Pro when placed directly on its
screen.
The product refresh, taking place at an event in Shanghai, comes
after Microsoft last month said revenue for the entire Surface line
of computers sank 26% to $831 million. Amy Hood, the company's
finance chief, attributed the decline to stiffer competition on
prices but also because the Surface computers in the market hadn't
been recently updated. The Surface Pro 4 was released in October
2015.
Microsoft's first Surface Pro, introduced in 2013, was a novelty
-- a tablet that ran a version of the Windows operating system and
supported a stylus and, if people were willing to spend more, a
$130 detachable keyboard. These days, Apple Inc.'s iPad Pro
supports similar accessories.
The newest Pro ditches the number in the name, a tactic Apple
deployed with its own iPad line of tablets. "After version 4, it
starts to get tedious," Microsoft corporate vice president Yusuf
Mehdi said in an interview.
Microsoft claims the battery life on the new Surface Pro lasts
13.5 hours, 50% longer than the previous version, though, the
storage and memory-capacity options haven't changed. Neither has
the $799 starting price. Customers beginning Tuesday can preorder
the Surface Pro, which will be available June 15 in the U.S. and 25
other markets around the world.
Microsoft is also updating the Surface Pen, claiming to have
quadrupled the level of pressure sensitivity to make writing with
the stylus more accurate. And the company is rolling out a new app,
Microsoft Whiteboard, that lets users share the same whiteboard
space on different devices at the same time.
Write to Jay Greene at Jay.Greene@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 23, 2017 08:29 ET (12:29 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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