Surface isn't successful. It's a disaster. Just a well covered up one so far. Give it a couple of years and it'll be down the toilet as well. Consumer Reports dumped on them last year with a 25% failure rate within 2 years. Rather than deal with this, they go into denial and market market market mode.
The problem is that they're building products they want, not what the user wants. And when the user asks for something, they just say NOTHING and drown out all the negativity with blogs and hype and pointless communication paths to pacify the users who are pissed off.
On top of all that there is this personality cult around Satya where everyone is saying he's the second coming, the saviour and all that junk. Turns out that it's blinded marketing, the enterprise customers are getting shafted (me) and footing the bill for cock up after cock up after cock up.
Quality is gone. Privacy is gone. No one says anything. Everyone is voting with their feet.
Same turd of a company as ever.
I wanted to buy a Windows phone since I use none of these apps, but there was no hardware refresh or major announcements around Windows phones and that deterred me. I don't understand how MS went on to a successful Surface and failed phones, I would think they're similar markets - hype-driven, takes a few iterations to get right, etc. I bought the Google G2 and it was far from what an Android phone is today, but Windows phones seem to run on a no-upgrade strategy which is strange