Microsoft cut the prices on its Surface RT tablets on Sunday by as much as 30 percent as the company tries to boost lackluster sales of the in-house tablets.
The software giant's entry-level 32GB model without a touch keyboard was reduced from $499 to $349, while the 64GB model's price was also reduced by $150, now selling for $499, a price cut of 25 percent.
The price cuts come a few weeks after Microsoft reduced the price of a version of the tablet for schools and universities for a two-month window this summer. Under that program, Surface RTs without keyboards sell for as low as $199.
Before that, Microsoft was offering substantial discounts on Surface RT and Surface Pro devices to attendees of some of its recent conferences. Microsoft also tried to drum up Surface RT sales in May by kicking in a free cover.
Sales of Surface RT tablets, which debuted a year ago, have been seen as tepid. In March, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft likely sold around 1.5 million Surface tablets to date. Though 1 million of those sales were for the RT version, that number was about half of what Microsoft initially expected, according to Bloomberg.
