Beneath A Surface
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Beneath A Surface

About the Book

After having failed to create a market for tablets in the early 2000s, Microsoft launched a new hardware effort in 2012 to disastrous results. The company was forced to write-down $900 million in inventory and Surface’s future was in jeopardy.

Beneath A Surface tells the inside story of how Microsoft turned its hardware dreams into a reality with new details about the challenges Panos and his team had to overcome as well as the internal politics that nearly killed the brand.

For fans of Microsoft and those who are interested in the business of building brands, Beneath A Surface is a must read that tells the inside story of how Microsoft turned a failure into a fortune. 

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    • Management
    • Computer Hardware
    • Computers and Programming
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About the Author

Brad Sams
Brad Sams

Brad Sams has more than a decade of writing experience and has played an integral part in uncovering Microsoft's hardware ambitions during the past six years. In that time, he has been the first to report on many of the company's upcoming products, months before they are were announced, and has provided unique insights about the direction that the company is headed with their hardware.

In this book, Brad brings together his years of experience, stories from launch events, and content from nearly two-dozen interviews, to tell the inside story of how Microsoft turned around its failing hardware ambitions into a billion-dollar product line as nobody else could. If you are a fan of Microsoft and its hardware or want to learn about how Microsoft created it's newest billion-dollar brand, Beneath A Surface is for you.

Brad resides in Cincinnati, Ohio and earned his MBA from the Lindner School of Business. Prior to starting his career in publishing, he worked as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies to help create, implement, and audit financial strategies.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter 1 - Early Ambitions
  • Chapter 2 - From Table to Tablet
  • Chapter 3 - Building the First
  • Chapter 4 - Inviting the World
  • Chapter 5 - Surface Unveiling
  • Chapter 6 - A Perfect Disaster
  • Chapter 7 - The Writedown
  • Chapter 8 - Chasing Two The Success Dragon
  • Chapter 9 - Second Generation RT and Pro
  • Chapter 10 - The Accessories of Hope
  • Chapter 11 - Accidentally NFL
  • Chapter 12 - Eating Two Careers
  • Chapter 13 - The Future Depends on This
  • Chapter 14 - Surface Pro 3 Debut
  • Chapter 15 - The Lost Mini
  • Chapter 16 - Everyone is Mad at Microsoft
  • Chapter 17 - A Lumia, a Surface Pro, and a Surface Book Walk Into a Conference Room
  • Chapter 18 - Saving Windows
  • Chapter 19 - The Hardware High Note
  • Chapter 20 - A Hard Computer Science Problem
  • Chapter 21 - The Studio
  • Chapter 22 - The Pawn for Windows 10 S
  • Chapter 23 - Larger is Better and Harder
  • Chapter 24 - Let it Go
  • Chapter 25 - Full USB-Circle
  • Chapter 26 - The Past and Future

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