Yes, but as the Surface has become a 1.5 Billion Business for MS, I highly doubt that retailers are keeping that much inventory in stock if it isn't selling...40,000 units is way to low....
Some estimate that they sold around 1.5 million tablets last quarter:
Microsoft May Have Sold Well Over a Million Surface Tablets Last Quarter
I'm familiar with how Microsoft (and other F500 tech companies) report sales, inventory, retail pipeline, revenue, and profits. You are free to believe that there are 1.5M Surface tablets running RT in the hands of consumers, I have no interest in trying to convince anyone otherwise.
Assuming that there are 1.5M Surface 2/RT tablets in customers hands then the pitiful support that Microsoft has shown the platform in 2014 is doing a terrible disservice to those customers. I've mentioned before that the Black Friday doorbuster sales on the Surface RT had grabbed people's interest. I helped quite a few family and friends track one done for the holiday season. Especially since inventory of Surface 2 devices was extremely low. That has since been resolved and Surface 2 devices are easy to find.
Now I'm hearing complaints from these same people about how fragile the updates have been for their Surface RT devices. These are not tech-savvy people. They saw a simple to use, of what they assumed was a maintenance-free tablet that just happened to have MS Office and a few apps for the things they do on a regular basis at a screaming deal. That's all.
The lack of apps in the appstore didn't bother them. They could get to Facebook, check their email, surf the web, create and print documents. But the system updates from Microsoft caused issues virtually every time one was released. Battery draining, keyboards stopped working. Things have been far from maintenance-free. If the situation doesn't change soon, they will probably look to pass the Surface on to someone else and look elsewhere for a tablet.
Because of the firesale price, the Surface showed them how a tablet could fit in their workflow and lifestyle uses. The instability of the Surface has shown them that they need to go elsewhere for a tablet.
That is what is happening, at least in my sphere of influence, and why issues like the one highlighted by this thread need to be taken seriously by Microsoft and addressed ASAP.
