Another $100 Price Cut for Microsoft Surface Pro

Microsoft is cutting the price of its Surface Pro tablets by $100 for both the 128GB and 64GB versions. The price reduction will run only until Aug 29 and will be applicable only in the U.S., Canada, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

With the promo, the 128GB model would be sold at $899 while the 64GB model would retail at $799. The price cut excludes the Touch Cover detachable keyboard.

The move by Microsoft is seen as the tech giant's way of improving sales which could not match that of competitors such as Apple's iPad gadgets and different but lower cost tablets that run on Google's Android OS.

In July, Microsoft had cut the prices of the standard Surface RT tablet to $349 from $499 and the model with keyboard to $499 from $599. It covered then the 32GB version.

Despite the previous price cuts made by Microsoft, the tablet had difficulty acquiring a larger share of the market because of its limited appeal to companies, network connectivity and failure to run the bulk of the software in its x86-based Windows ecosystem.

The Pro addressed some of these shortcomings since it runs the full version of Windows 8 on an Intel processor.

In the first quarter of 2013, Microsoft sold 900,000 Surface devices, the May report of IT research firm IDC disclosed. The bulk were Surface Pros that Microsoft began to ship to the U.S. and Canada in February.

But the tech giant's Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets continue to fail to impress the market with total combined shipments for the two models reaching 1.8 million units for Q1.

Sales of the Surface Pro reached $853 million, lower than the $900 million that Microsoft wrote down on unsold units of the first tablet model. To give the device more prominence, Microsoft increased its advertising expenses by 10 per cent or $1.4 billion.

The attempt to sell more units is being linked to speculations that Microsoft will refresh the Surface RT and Pro models using a Haswell processor. The company is also reportedly testing Surface devices with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 processor and will release several new accessories such as a battery-equipped keyboard cover in different colours.