The week’s winner: Nigel and the Microsoft Surface RT

Our feel-good story of the week has to be the one surrounding Microsoft NZ Developer & Platform Group lead Nigel Parker’s Surface RT, listed on Trade Me. With the conclusion of the sale, Parker made a rather magnificent gesture and pledged the full proceeds to Cure Kids.

On picking up a tweet from Parker revealing to the world that one of his Surface devices was up for grabs, we ran this story. Some questioned why this was news, but the figures don’t lie: first it was the most-read item of the day – then it was the most-read story of the week. It even beat out the perennially popular reportage on Kim Dotcom (and who wouldn’t click on a headline like this.)

Our angle was a hypothesis that the Surface RT would likely not command as good a resale price as a comparable iPad; Parker (and Microsoft) can take some satisfaction that his 5-month old device fetched almost as much ($704) as the brand new ones do ($739), going on sale in Harvey Norman and JB Hifi today.

That may be on account of the publicity which surrounded the sale – our involvement may have skewed our ‘research’; UK-based international tech site The Register picked up on the story and took a slightly different angle. A witty commentator noted, rather cheekily, “Exec sells Surface isn't news. Exec finds buyer for Surface, that's news” – and here we are, reporting it.

The saga of Nigel’s Surface RT, therefore, has come to a very happy ending, earning Nigel and Microsoft some considerable kudos.