Readers, get in touch: Where is your Microsoft Surface?

Hello, readers. Can you help?

At first, we reported that if you were in the U.K. then "you're not getting your Surface tablet on October 26," because a series of delays have hampered the shipping and delivery of the long-awaited Microsoft branded tablets. 

While Microsoft representatives had consistently said that the Surface would be "shipped to arrive on October 26," the release date of Windows 8, it turns out they would in fact be "dispatched" on October 26 and take between one-three working days to arrive. That pegs the arrival of the Surface at Monday at the very earliest, and Wednesday at the latest.

Where is your Surface? It's currently "sitting in Microsoft's warehouse," most likely.

There's no doubt that as a result of the Surface shipping fiasco, Microsoft's communication strategy has been more than flawed in a number of ways. 

According to various tweets and sources, Microsoft is not providing shipping notices in either the U.K. or elsewhere. While Amazon and Google, both rival tablet makers, ship their products relatively quickly and with a good communication strategy with its customers -- Apple is much the same -- Microsoft appears to have fallen short of its customer relations commitments.

We've reached out to Microsoft U.K. but have not heard back in a timely fashion. If we do, we'll update the piece.

So, we want to hear from you.

But here at ZDNet HQ, we've heard rumblings from the social media wires that it may not be limited to just the U.K. In fact, it may be a more widespread problem, with delays hampering the shipping release of the highly anticipated Microsoft tablet.

We were wondering if you could help. (We spent our budget on custom-printed hilarious 3D business cards, Post-It notes, and Nerf foam guns that we use to brutally torment our very own Charlie Osborne, so a mere blog post is all we have for crowdsourcing information.)

Update at 4:45 p.m. BST: We've had a fantastic response thanks to you, the reader. Our inboxes are literally brimming with replies, the comments below are fantastic, and the Twitter response has been off the scale. We're talking about literally hundreds of messages from all over the U.K. and Europe. 

Here's what we know:

• Microsoft is working flat out. The software giant now has a dedicated, separate team specifically for sorting out orders. Microsoft is utterly "slammed," suggesting the number of orders are significantly higher than initially expected. 
• In some cases, orders will be "fulfilled directly from the factories," including China and Germany. Germany will be faster to ship European orders than China, obviously, but it also suggests Germany has seen fewer orders than it expected, which allows German stock to be transported elsewhere in the world.
• UPS will be delivering some orders on Saturday. (Bad news if you had your device shipped to your office.)

Again, the response has been overwhelming. Thank you for your comments. We endeavor to collate this data over the weekend and report back on Monday morning. 

One reader also got in touch to say Microsoft U.K. had emailed them to apologize for the confusion -- and to make up for it:

As stated at the time of order, we expect customers in the U.K. to receive their Surface devices between October 26 and October 30. We apologize for any confusion caused by subsequent emails stating an earlier or later arrival date. To make up for any inconvenience, we would like to offer you a single use coupon for up to £50 ($80) off your next purchase from Microsoft online store.

To use your coupon, please visit www.microsoftstore.com/uk, shop for the items you want, and, at check out, type the code [***] in the Promo Code box. The value of your coupon will be applied at checkout, before you complete your purchase.

If you have any questions regarding your order, please visit us online at www.microsoftstore.com/uk or give us a call at 0800 026 0329.

Update at 12:30 a.m. BST: Again, we're utterly overwhelmed by the response. While you can keep commenting, we've frozen the outsourcing effort at 12 midnight BST. This data will be collated over the weekend and we will report back first thing Monday morning with our results. And so far, the preliminary results are absolutely fascinating.

Stay tuned, and we wish you the best of luck in receiving your Surface tablets sooner rather than later!

Image source: Flickr.