If I remember correctly, the XBox was operating at a loss at the beginning. I think it was more than expected that it would take a few years to break into the market.
There's a major difference between operating at a loss while selling 1.3 million units in 3 months (more than the PS2, PS3, Wii) as the XBOX did and having a product that absolutely nobody is buying as the Surface.
There's a major difference between "a product that absolutely nobody is buying" and the revenue reported in the eight most recent quarters: $672MM (Q1-2016), $888MM (Q4-2015), $713MM (Q3-2015), $1100MM (Q2-2015), $908MM (Q1-2015), $409MM (Q4-2014), $500MM (Q3-2014), $893MM (Q2-2014).
(to note, Q2 is their oct-nov-dec quarter)
~$6Billion in revenue means absolutely someone is buying Surface products.
The year (2016) refers to the calendar year in which Microsoft's fiscal year ends (Jun 2016). Many, but not all, companies use a standard fiscal year of Jul-Jun rather than a calendar year of Jan-Dec for financial reporting and tax purposes.
Thus, Q1 2016 means the quarter ending Sep 30, 2015, for Microsoft's fiscal year ending Jun 30, 2016 (which began Jul 1, 2015).
I travel on a train for a medium length journey 2-4 times a week. In the last 12 months I've noticed that the transition from never seeing a Surface (Pro) to seeing 5-10% of tablets being a Surface (Pro). The vast majority are iPads still but its interesting that Surface has made such inroads. Based on what I see the main reason is the combination of the keyboard and Outlook.
A lot of people forget that IT departments in medium to large companies need to be able to remotely manage equipment, Macs are "annoying" and iPads are damn near un-manage-able.
So while a lot of middle managers outside of IT think that iPads are "cool" and push for them, they get a lot of push back from IT due to their impracticality and the amount of time/resources it would take to manage.
A Surface Pro has none of these issues. It is a standard Windows 10 PC which can be managed via System Center/AD/GPO/etc, so they're non-effort machines for enterprise/IT.
So that, I suspect, is why you're seeing so many so quickly. Internally non-IT management wants a "tablet" and the IT department is deflecting from iPads onto Surface Pros because it is in their best interests to do so.