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beggi

Erm, always killed it? Zune, Surface, Lumia?

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Hardware-wise, I'd say yes. I haven't used a Lumia but the Zune-HD and Surface were actually well made.

Xbox 360?

One of the bestselling game platforms ever with a library rivaling the PS2?

Yes, the RROD was a huge debacle and too many lost money on broken Xboxes. That doesn't change the fact that people bought 70 million of the things, and generally seemed to love them.

You're absolutely right if the discussion was about the business success of the game console, but it's not. It's about Microsoft always having 'hardware that's killing it', which is made pretty untrue by the consoles' faulty reliability in the past.

A whole cottage industry of aftermarket console cooling apparatus was spawned due to the first Xbox's history, and it didn't help whatsoever in staying the problems that the second one had.

It was a business success regardless, but that's not the topic at hand.

Not to mention the Lumia just became a Microsoft product. Microsoft has yet to put their own stamp on the brand.

There's an old Microsoft joystick (the Sidewinder 3D Pro) that hasn't been made in at least a decade, but several friends of mine still use them (with custom gameport-to-USB converters specifically designed for that stick.) Yet another quality piece of Microsoft hardware.

With my RMBP, I use a Microsoft wired mouse that would be about 15 years old. I want to get a wireless mouse, but I don't want to lose the feeling of this one!

The Microsoft Intellimouse is the best desktop mouse ever.

I still have my Sidewinder joystick :) It survived several moves over the years, and still works perfectly. Really solid piece of hardware.

The Lumia is excellent hardware with a nice OS. Unfortunately I switched away because the ecosystem wasn't good enough at the time.

Zune had problems, but hardware wasn't one of them. At least not from the five minutes that I ever used one. Which was maybe the only Zune I ever saw.

Seconding this. I used one for a few years and while I loved the device itself and everything about its interface, it was hampered by the poor software (a reskinned version of Windows Media Player, basically) required to sync anything to it, and the fact that no one cared enough about Zunes to reverse them like they did with the iPods :( I might still be using it if it had drag and drop file management.

The SurfacePro was pretty cool when I played around with it. Microsoft keyboards and mice have been consistently great for as long as I can remember.

> Lumia

If you had actually used one as a real phone, I doubt you would be saying that the "hardware" isn't good. The core components are as good as the competition. The amount of sensors available to developers is ludicrous. Not only that, if the build (phone body) forms part of what you would call "hardware" - it truly lives up to the Nokia reputation.

I still use my Zune-hd, kinda amazed the battery has lasted as long as it has. It is still a beautiful piece of kit. Fits in the hand so well. No updates to the OS, but the music player was so good it isn't necessary. My only wish was that it didn't have a proprietary charging port.

All excellent hardware, and I say that as someone who uses Apple products entirely.

IIRC, Surface is one of the key reasons Microsoft did so well in the last quarter.

You mean revenue wise? Is it anything more than a rounding error? (Serious question.)

According to http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/10/27/mic..., they sold $908 million in Surfaces, out of 2.45 billion total hardware sales (including Xbox), last quarter. Total revenue last quarter for Microsoft was 23.20 billion.

So, Surface won't be replacing Windows/Office any time soon, but nearly a billion in revenue for what a lot of people try to frame as a failed product is not too shabby.

Wow, that is very eye opening, thanks!

For Surface, Microsoft made $908m in sales, but spent $839m to make the devices. Compare that to last year, when they sold $2.13b worth of Surface devices but spent $2.87b to make them.[1]

I wouldn't say it's a key profit area for them yet, and we also can't call it a success yet (as they haven't reported the total retail purchases).

[1] http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/24/a-win-for-microsofts-...

The surface pro 3 is a masterpiece. I haven't held anything nicer.

The Zune HD was extremely well built.

Surface Pro 3 is a great piece of kit

You forgot the Microsoft Courier.

I'm not sure a company should really get any credit or criticism from a cancelled project that was never advertised.

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