Microsoft has announced that it will stop making Surface 3 tablets by the end of 2016, after some reports that several retailers have stopped selling the tablet. The Intel Atom-powered tablet was announced back in March last year as the affordable variant of the Surface Pro 3, starting at $499.
Microsoft unveiled the Surface Pro 4 back in October last year along with the Surface Book laptop, but has not announced any plans to update them anytime soon. Successor of the Surface 3 is also not expected to be in the works.
Microsoft did not launch the Surface 3 in India, instead it launched the Surface Pro 3 and Surface Pro 4 earlier this year.
According to the ZDNet report, Microsoft may wait until Spring 2017 for the next hardware upgrade. It has also decided to postpone the launch of next version of Windows codenamed Redstone 2 until early 2017.
Regarding the Surface 3’s production, Microsoft, in a statement to ZDNet, said:
Since launching Surface 3 over a year ago, we have seen strong demand and satisfaction amongst our customers. Inventory is now limited, and by the end of December 2016, we will no longer manufacture Surface 3 devices.