Microsoft kicks back $5-$10 to resellers who peddle select Windows 8 hardware

Starting this week, Microsoft will give resellers up to $10 for each device they sell from a list of 21 Windows 8 touch-enabled PCs and tablets, company executives said.

The new program is the latest move by Microsoft to kick up sales, which on the PC side have been downright depressing. Research firm IDC, for instance, has forecast a decline of nearly 8 percent for 2013, and has already hinted that the drop may be even steeper. In tablets, Microsoft has had little luck in making much of an inroad into a market dominated by operating systems built by rivals Apple and Google.

But the selective nature of the incentive program—fewer than two dozen different devices qualify—shows it’s also a continuation of a strategy Microsoft has used since last summer’s launch of the Surface line, when the company said it entered the hardware business to have a platform that really flaunted Windows 8.

Both Tami Reller, the CFO of the Windows division, and Jon Roskill, who heads the firm’s global partner group, talked up the new program, dubbed “TouchWins,” at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) Monday.

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Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043900/microsoft-kicks-back-510-to-resellers-who-peddle-select-windows-8-hardware.html#tk.rss_laptopcomputers

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