In some unknown warehouse presumably sits a pile of millions of beautiful, unused Surface RTs, the tablet computer that was supposed to resurrect Microsoft. Late Thursday, the company revealed for the first time that it has failed to entice many people to buy the product, and the software maker made an
unexpected, $900 million writeoff on its unsold Surface inventory. The losses don't end there: On Friday morning, Microsoft
shed $30 billion in value after its stock tumbled 10 percent.
According to
one calculation, that loss translates to nearly 6 million sleek and
rather stunning machines that consumers have decided they don't care to own. No matter how the math works out -- the company would not provide exact sales numbers -- that heap of Surfaces just burned a nearly $1 billion hole in Microsoft's pocket.
The irony of the Surface debacle is that Microsoft actually managed to design a product that many reviewers admired, but it failed anyway -- underscoring the degree to which this once-dominant technology company appears to be past its moment. Good, bad or mediocre, the Surface was apparently doomed on arrival because that arrival was way too late, with the market already claimed by Apple’s wildly popular iPad.
How did such a powerful company manage to engineer such a colossal loser?
"This 8, 8.1 don't look and feel right on me desktop!" 
