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Staples Becomes The First Retailer To Sell Microsoft's Surface RT Tablet

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Microsoft is now officially selling its Surface RT tablet at retail locations besides its own Microsoft Stores and website.

As of tomorrow, Staples will be selling the device.

Sources close to the company told Business Insider that Microsoft will soon announce more retailers, too. Most industry watchers expect Best Buy, and perhaps Walmart, to also sell the Surface. Staples will be selling the RT tablet for the same prices as Microsoft, starting at $499.

This is a critically important move for Microsoft. Until this announcement, the Surface was only available at Microsoft's own stores, of which there are 31, plus 34 special holiday "pop up" stores. In comparison, Staples operates nearly 1,900 retail stores throughout the United States and Canada.

By expanding into Staples, far more people can play with the device before buying it.

This move should also stop unscrupulous retailers from buying the Surface from Microsoft and trying to sell it to consumers at an inflated price.

Here's the relevant parts of the press release.

Staples, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLS), the world’s largest office products company and second largest internet retailer in the world, today announced it will carry Microsoft Surface at all Staples locations and Staples.comas early as December 12. ...

Microsoft Surface features an extension of the Windows experience, letting customers work, play and connect with others. ... Surface will be available at Staples and feature the following models:
Surface with Windows RT 32 GB - $499
Surface with Windows RT 32 GB with Black Touch Cover - $599
Surface with Windows RT 64 GB with Black Touch Cover - $699

Customers who purchase the Microsoft Surface from Staples will receive the exclusive ‘8 Was Easy’ offer which includes free personalized training, free support and free startup with the purchase of any Windows 8 computer. Consumers who purchase any Surface regularly priced $699 and above will also receive free data transfer from their old computer.

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Julie Bort was Business Insider's Editor at Large for the Tech team. She loves investigating stories and shedding light on the tech industry's most amazing people.Here's a small sample of some of Julie's work.Former Pinterest employees describe a traumatic workplace where managers humiliate employees until they cry, Black people feel alienated, and the toxic culture 'eats away at your soul'Sex, tequila, and a tiger: Employees inside Adam Neumann's WeWork talk about the nonstop party to attain a $100 billion dream and the messy reality that tanked itInsiders say WeWork's IT is a patchwork of cheap devices and Band-Aid fixes that will take millions to fixWeWork's toxic phone booths were created in-house by its Powered by We business70-hour weeks and 'WTF' emails: 42 employees reveal the frenzy of working at Tesla under the 'cult' of Elon MuskElon Musk works so many hours at Tesla, employees are constantly finding him asleep under tables and desksHow this woman went from a Pizza Hut employee to a founder of a $4 billion startupAn Oracle insider explains how some salespeople gamed the system to sell more cloudTHE TAKEDOWN OF TRAVIS KALANICK: The untold story of Uber's infighting, backstabbing, and multimillion-dollar exit packagesMicrosoft is in talks to buy GitHub, a startup at the center of the software world last valued at $2 billionThe alarming inside story of a failed Google acquisition, and an employee who was hospitalizedInside Facebook's plan to eat another $350 billion IT marketHow a registered sex offender wound up living in an Airbnb hosting unsuspecting guestsA controversial ex-banker is the person who really runs Twitter — and he's gambling the company's future on one risky betSecret passages and skipped meals: Oracle's CEO gave us a rare peek at what it really takes to run a $37 billion companyHP told some employees to choose between becoming contractors with no benefits or being fired without severance'I felt like we were being extorted': Customer says Oracle tried to strong-arm him into a cloud saleHow the queen of Silicon Valley is helping Google go after Amazon's most profitable businessAirbnb host: A guest is squatting in my condo and I can't get him to leaveLIES, BOOZE, AND BILLIONS: How one of the fastest-growing startups in Silicon Valley history raised $580 million then spiraled out of controlGitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart — and we have the full inside storyWhen she's not writing for Business Insider, Julie can usually be found on the trails, on my mountain bike, or on my skis, if you know where to look.