Poor Windows 8 Devices Hurt Microsoft’s Image, Says Company Exec

There’s absolutely no official statement on the sales performance of Microsoft’s Surface tablet, but officials of the Redmond-based technology giant say it’s all going according to plan until now.

The problem with Windows 8, on the other hand, is that OEMs have created poor devices that do not bring the essential features of the new operating system into the spotlight, so some consumers may think that the same experience is provided by all similar products on the market.

Or, at least, that’s what Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie thinks. Mundie said that Microsoft had allowed partners to freely design their Windows 8 products, without setting any guidelines that would have guaranteed a higher quality.

“We said, ‘oh the OEMs, that’s their design, they deal with it.’ We got huge diversity out of that at all possible price points, but it became hard to guarantee a uniform quality of experience that the end user had… it turned out that we took the flak for the fact we had this highly variable experience,” he was quoted as saying by The Verge.

“I think one of the things evolved over a long time in the PC business was we stopped some years back really trying to actively curate what the devices looked like,” the continued.

Without saying a word about how attractive Windows 8 as a software product actually is, Mundie explained that the Redmond-based technology giant is currently paying more focus to hardware and design.

The Surface was supposed from the get-go to challenge the iPad, so the company has created a device that competes in several areas, including design and hardware.

“One of the big challenges that the company faced in the last couple of years was just the question of, would there be a very high quality physical device that would go up against Apple?”

As far as Microsoft goes, the company is reportedly working to expand the Surface family with new products, including smaller tablets specifically tailored for gaming. New Surface devices are expected to hit the market later this year.