A good product is only half the battle!

In June 2012, Microsoft introduced its new tablet to the world: the Surface.

After the press conference where the Surface was unveiled people wanted the Surface and they wanted it right now. The hype about the new Surface could be compared to any Apple release - so why wasn't it as successful as Apple's products?
The major problem was that Microsoft announced neither a price nor a release date for the Surface. In fact, it took them four months to reveal this information. At that time the hype had already subsided and critics had enough time to find flaws about the Surface so that fewer people wanted it than expected.

Once the Surface was on the market, customers had yet to overcome another hurdle: Microsoft decided to sell the Surface exclusively in Microsoft stores and through their own website. As there were only 20 Microsoft stores at that moment, there were only 20 places in the world where people could go and actually try out the new device. No one wants to buy a pig in a poke, especially when the product costs about $500.
Finally, the name of the new Microsoft tablet was very confusing. There has already been a showpiece called Surface in 2011. If a person searches the internet for a certain product and can't even find it directly because there are several products with the same name, it leads to the person loosing interest in the product.

The "old" Microsoft Surface.

Clearly, Microsoft did a good job with the Surface. It is a nice tablet and real competitor for Apple's iPad. Last month, Microsoft announced the release of a new version of the Surface and hopefully they learned from their mistakes and do it better this time.