At the weekend Microsoft started offering Surface Pro price cuts of $100 in various world regions including the U.S., Canada, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The US retail websites of Best Buy and Staples also featured these discounts. At the time of writing there is no such cut in evidence on the Microsoft UK Surface Pro web page.
Go to the Microsoft Surface Pro web page in the US and you get the following offer "Body of a tablet. Heart of a laptop. Save $100 on a Surface Pro when you buy now". The small print shows that the $100 discount offer runs from yesterday until 29th August. Prices are now as follows; the 64GB Surface Pro is $799 and the 128GB version is $899. Neither prices include a keyboard/cover of any kind. In addition to the cut price offer of the tablet itself, Microsoft (US) is offering a 33 per cent discount on the "Surface Pro Bundle" which includes Office Home and Student 2013, Complete for Surface Pro 2-year warranty, Type Cover, INCIPIO Surface Sleeve, and Surface Pro Screen Protector. This bundle has been reduced from $478.96 to $309.99. The WSJ reports that other regions with similar Surface Pro tablet discounts include Canada, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
This news follows the heavy discounting of the Surface RT, the ARM powered version of Microsoft's Surface tablet. Note that even UK shoppers have now got the chance to buy the Surface RT at quite a discount to its initial launch price, it is now just £279 in the Microsoft UK online store. That tablet was severely cut in price due to sluggish sales and Microsoft's financials in mid-July showed the company produced far too many Surface RT tablets, and then couldn't sell them at the intended price, resulting in a huge $900 million write-down.
Surface Pro and Surface RT
What's the reason for the Surface Pro price cut? The official line is "We’ve been seeing great world-wide success with Surface RT pricing and keyboard-cover promotions over the past several months and are proud to offer Surface Pro at more affordable prices," according to a Microsoft statement issued yesterday.
There shouldn't be such a glut of these Surface Pro systems as Microsoft had time to gauge the RT's modest reception before churning out Pros. Microsoft Surface Pros sold out at launch in the US and there were supposedly still stock shortages in April. However Microsoft might want to clear stock with this modest price cut to make the most of the back-to-school season and clear out before a new Surface is launched.
