Re:Microsoft's Surface sales figures are in, and they're hid...
by cabalamat on Tuesday July 30, 2013 @11:13PM
(#6131700)
> My simple, genuine question is: how did this happen? I mean, Microsoft has huge resources, and presumably does testing with focus groups, etc.
I'm sure they do, and I'm sure they focus-grouped the tablets extensively.
But it's very hard to convince someone of something that they really, really don't want to be true. There's a Dilbert cartoon (http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-11-06/) where the Ugly Truth is that there's nothing Microsoft can do to stop its decline into irrelevance and that producing a tablet is their attempt to hide that truth from themselves.
And maybe Microsoft's internal culture makes it hard for underlings to tell their bosses bad news, so any bad news gets a layer of amelioration and obfuscation for every layer of management.
Put all that together and its easy to see how a big failure could happen.
I'm sure they do, and I'm sure they focus-grouped the tablets extensively.
But it's very hard to convince someone of something that they really, really don't want to be true. There's a Dilbert cartoon (http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-11-06/) where the Ugly Truth is that there's nothing Microsoft can do to stop its decline into irrelevance and that producing a tablet is their attempt to hide that truth from themselves.
And maybe Microsoft's internal culture makes it hard for underlings to tell their bosses bad news, so any bad news gets a layer of amelioration and obfuscation for every layer of management.
Put all that together and its easy to see how a big failure could happen.