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Microsoft has got itself into a bit of a pickle and is trying to buy its way out, as usual, offering £50 of shopping credit to anyone who hasn’t received their Windows RT Surface hardware on the claimed launch day.
The problem lies with the fact that MS initially only offered a “launch window” arrival date for the Surface tablet of between October 26th and 30th, with subsequent order confirmation emails then going on to, erroneously, promise an arrival date of the 26th in some cases.
Leading, therefore, to early adopter angst. Here’s Microsoft’s explanation:
As stated at the time of order, we expect customers in the UK to receive their Surface devices between Oct. 26 and Oct. 30. We apologize for any confusion caused by subsequent emails stating an earlier or later arrival date. To make up for any inconvenience, we would like to offer you a single use coupon for up to £50 off your next purchase from Microsoft online store.
So you might’ve had a weekend with your Surface, but you’ll get £50 to spend on MS gear as a result. Also, this is one time when we’re winning the exchange rate war by a mile — delayed Canadian orders get their buyers $50 as compo, while we get £50. [Cnet via Engadget]
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Called it! I was certain MS will have supply chain issues. Bugs soon to follow. You need very stringent controls on your supply chain and quality if you’re going to compete with Apple.
Called what? They’ve been so successful they can’t keep up with demand? Sounds like a nice problem to have to me.
I’m waiting to see one of these in person before I buy. But so far, from the unbiased reviews, It looks like it’s the first tablet that you can do work on, so I’m excited to see if it’s good.
Spot on! Because Apple never has any shortages of a just-announced product, wait, er…
And not to mention Hurricane Sandy coming up to throw logistics all over the place.
Still waiting for mine as of yet it still says Status: In process however below that it does say Pre-Order 02/11/2012.
So I will hold of till Friday before nagging them.
Someone should have warned MS that the one group of people not to annoy – are those familiar with the internet.
So offering compensation for a delay is “trying to buy it’s way out, as usual”. Some companies would just turn round and point you to the small-print about it being an approximate delivery date, blah, blah, blah.
Ordered mine on the 16th. Should have arrived on the 26th, didn’t spoke to several people in a call centre in India who are as thick as shit and didn’t have a clue what was going on. As of yet I am not only “Sufaceless” but also have ZERO idea of when to expect it, as they have literally no clue what is going on.