Surface Pro 3 price drops mean SP4 is incoming?
This is an interesting (and surprisingly common) theme on the net of late. When people predict a new version of a product is just around the corner, they see everything as a sign that it is about to happen. And it doesn't matter if the product subsequently isn't released for another 1 month, 1 year or 10 years; they'll still reflect back on these predictions and claim they were right. Any sort of price drop is just happens to be one of the largest catalysts for this sort of idiocy.
And this IS exactly that sort of nonsense. Microsoft has a ONE DAY sale on ONE model of the SP3. JUST the 128GB i5 version.
NOTHING about THAT screams "imminent new product". Heck, not long ago they had much more modest slashes, but across the entire Surface Pro lineup. That was more the sort of behavior one might associated with a new product launch. Except... even then, it isn't one time price drops that accompany new product launches, it is permanent ones.
Yes, Microsoft will more than likely unveil a new Surface Pro. And they will probably do so in fairly short order. The SP3 doesn't support any of the fancy new Windows Hello features, the old tablet is "sufficiently old" to be replaced. Etc...
But THAT isn't the reason Microsoft is offering sales. They've offered sales at random points in time for the SP3 since it launched and through various avenues. And the reasons for those price drops were the same as the reasons here. Either as a promotional vehicle, or to boost sales for the month/quarter/whatever.
Sure! With the SP4 likely just around the corner, it may also serve to help unload some excess stock that they won't then attempt to replenish. But that would be more of a secondary objective. But, the crux of the whole claim is this... if the sale were so popular it complete depleted their stock, they would then have to produce more. There is not yet an SP4 available and therefore they need to be able to continue to sell all existing models.
The price drop that will TRULY signal the SP4 will be the permanent one that comes into effect once that product is unveiled. Microsoft is in some ways similar to Apple in this regard. The major difference between the two being that Apple drops the price and continues to sell the last gen as a budget version whereas Microsoft just drops the price until they are done unloading stock and then the model disappears from the retail channels.
But, the reality is actually very simple. Microsoft not only has no reason to cut prices BECAUSE of an SP4 right now. Cutting prices ahead of an unannounced product can actually backfire by depleting stock of a product you don't want to produce more of without anything to replace it with.
My guess is that there is a relative surplus of that particular model, and it is also probably one of the more lucrative models being the one immediately before the jump up to an i7 and 8GB of RAM. 128GB hard drives aren't overly expensive any more and 4GB and an i5 are rather pedestrian specs, so odds are that the production cost on that model has gone down over time a lot more compared to the other models and this gives them some confidence to sell it at a decent discount even if only for a day.
This late in the SP3 product life, if this were the first time price cuts were offered it might be something. If the price cuts were permanent it might mean something. Or if there were something exceptional about the price cuts (which there aren't) it might mean something.
The above logic can (and should) be applied to any price drops before theorizing about their relationship to imminent product launches.
And this IS exactly that sort of nonsense. Microsoft has a ONE DAY sale on ONE model of the SP3. JUST the 128GB i5 version.
NOTHING about THAT screams "imminent new product". Heck, not long ago they had much more modest slashes, but across the entire Surface Pro lineup. That was more the sort of behavior one might associated with a new product launch. Except... even then, it isn't one time price drops that accompany new product launches, it is permanent ones.
Yes, Microsoft will more than likely unveil a new Surface Pro. And they will probably do so in fairly short order. The SP3 doesn't support any of the fancy new Windows Hello features, the old tablet is "sufficiently old" to be replaced. Etc...
But THAT isn't the reason Microsoft is offering sales. They've offered sales at random points in time for the SP3 since it launched and through various avenues. And the reasons for those price drops were the same as the reasons here. Either as a promotional vehicle, or to boost sales for the month/quarter/whatever.
Sure! With the SP4 likely just around the corner, it may also serve to help unload some excess stock that they won't then attempt to replenish. But that would be more of a secondary objective. But, the crux of the whole claim is this... if the sale were so popular it complete depleted their stock, they would then have to produce more. There is not yet an SP4 available and therefore they need to be able to continue to sell all existing models.
The price drop that will TRULY signal the SP4 will be the permanent one that comes into effect once that product is unveiled. Microsoft is in some ways similar to Apple in this regard. The major difference between the two being that Apple drops the price and continues to sell the last gen as a budget version whereas Microsoft just drops the price until they are done unloading stock and then the model disappears from the retail channels.
But, the reality is actually very simple. Microsoft not only has no reason to cut prices BECAUSE of an SP4 right now. Cutting prices ahead of an unannounced product can actually backfire by depleting stock of a product you don't want to produce more of without anything to replace it with.
My guess is that there is a relative surplus of that particular model, and it is also probably one of the more lucrative models being the one immediately before the jump up to an i7 and 8GB of RAM. 128GB hard drives aren't overly expensive any more and 4GB and an i5 are rather pedestrian specs, so odds are that the production cost on that model has gone down over time a lot more compared to the other models and this gives them some confidence to sell it at a decent discount even if only for a day.
This late in the SP3 product life, if this were the first time price cuts were offered it might be something. If the price cuts were permanent it might mean something. Or if there were something exceptional about the price cuts (which there aren't) it might mean something.
The above logic can (and should) be applied to any price drops before theorizing about their relationship to imminent product launches.
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