The Microsoft Band has an interesting story behind it, from starting out as an Xbox accessory to possibly being one the hottest items to come out of Microsoft in years. The device, which went on sale a few weeks ago, has been constantly sold out and is hard to find at the company's retail stores.
The device was also released at an odd time as well, late at night during the seventh game of the World Series. The odd announcement time with the lack of availability raises the question, is the device out of stock because Microsoft underestimated the appeal of the device or is it simply really popular and they are selling at a faster pace than anticipated?
Even though the reviews of the device across the board do not scream 'buy me now', consumers do not seem to care and are genuinely interested in this device. The Band has been selling out as soon as it becomes available and it makes you wonder why Microsoft did not anticipate this demand.
Was it that they still have nightmares about the Surface RT write-down or did they really think they did not have a good product? It's hard to justify the second scenario as the last time they didn't think that they had a good product, the Surface Mini, it was killed before going to market. So here we are with the Band, which is selling faster than Microsoft can make them and it makes you wonder if they dramatically underestimated demand.
The last Microsoft product to sell like this would be the Xbox One and for the most part, the Xbox has been the only device to be heavily anticipated before launch. You could likely make that argument for the Surface Pro 3 too but seeing that Microsoft won't release those sales figures, we don't know how well it is or isn't doing.
It's good to see that Microsoft is capable of building products that draw strong demand on day one and now we watch (pun) to see how quickly they can build them to backfill demand ahead of the holidays.
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