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Windows RT Will Cost OEMs Over Twice As Much as Windows 7
MrSeb writes with this excerpt from Extreme Tech: "Good news: Last month's unbelievable rumors that a Windows RT (Windows 8 ARM) licenses would cost OEMs $90-100 were off the mark — in actual fact, as confirmed by multiple vendors at Computex in Taiwan, the Windows RT license cost is only $80-95. At this point, we're not entirely sure what Microsoft's plan for Windows RT is. It would seem that Microsoft doesn't want to flood the markets with cheap Windows RT tablets. At this rate, though, we would expect the cheapest Windows RT tablets to hit the market at around $600, with top-spec models (if they exist) in the $800-900 range — well above Android tablets or the iPad. We can only assume that Microsoft doesn't want to go head-to-head with iOS and Android, instead trying to stake out a position at the top end of the market. Whether this is a good plan, with x86 tablets and their full 20-year PC ecosystem also vying for market share, remains to be seen."
For comparison, sources say that Windows Phone 7 ran OEMs the equivalent of $30 per device, and Windows 7 for desktops around $50.
The iPad still has nothing to worry about. Does Microsoft secretly hold a ton of Apple stock? Are they just trying to make money by driving it up and then selling it?
Seems that Linux will finally get a chance.
So they're basically screwing up the desktop experience on Windows 8 in favor of tablets and smartphones, and on top of that they're pricing it so high that it won't have any reasonable chance of success in the market they want.
I'm betting that Steve Ballmer will be out the door by the time all this is over.
Please Microsoft, keep doing what you are doing.
Isn't Office included on Windows RT? I think that is the reason of that higher price, some big corporations have so disconnected divisions that each one demands their cut to meet their yearly quota and do not see the big picture
MS still doesn't get it, we are in the era of Good Enough Computing. my ipad 2 is not as powerful as my Lenovo, but i don't care. for a lot of things its more than good enough. most times i use my lenovo laptop the CPU is in the 5% range or less so it's not like i'm stressing it.
and the form factor of the ipad allows it to have applications that are not available on my laptop. Flipboard for one as well as lots of educational apps for kids
I'm forced to assume they set it so ludicrously high to make the inevitable OEM 'loyalty' discount impossible to resist. I can only hope they've misjudged this badly, that OEMs will decide to avoid Win8 rather than agree whatever restrictive terms (dropping Android?) come with that discount.
85-90 is ok, but 90-100? Why that would have been.. outrageous! Criminal!
Microsoft can't charge $120-150 for desktop Office and $15 for the tablet version. So they make up the difference elsewhere.
If this news is accurate, then Microsoft is fairly stupid and we can be happy about it.
They should license Windows RT for 10$, maximum 20$, and target the extreme low-cost segment. Heck, they should consider giving it away for free (for the time being). There is just no way a company can get a reasonable piece of the mobile market cake with their own proprietary operating system on the basis of primarily targeting high-end devices.
Luxury customers are rare and Apple's quasi-monopoly is hard to break, especially not by Microsoft whose design decisions have historically always been dominated by completely tasteless marketing managers. Anyway, cheap masses is what wins in the long run, see PC vs. Apple.
Microsoft, a commercial enterprise if there ever was one, has something new to sell and the market needs to guess the price.
But then it's purely B2B and has nothing to do with the consumer...
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Oh boy, do I want Windows 8 to be a massive failure!
Unfortunately, I think that Microsoft has enough resources hedge their bets.
Like when Intel (another giant) made the crappy Pentium 4, but they didn't collapse,
because they had a team in Israel developing a good alternative micro-architecture.
Still, I think we should concentrate efforts now - by evangelizing Ubuntu and Chrome/Firefox.
Okay, this bit I don't get:
It would seem that Microsoft doesn't want to flood the markets with cheap Windows RT tablets.
If what we see on PC's is anything to go by, this sort of pricing strategy will have the exact opposite effect. Manufacturers will grit their teeth, pay Microsoft and then cut every other conceivable corner they can think of in order to build products down to a price.
$600 - $900 for a Windows tablet? Really? Good luck with that one Ballmer. Look - Apple is a premium brand so they can get away with charging what they do for the iPad. The android tablets are priced at a discount to that, presumably because the OS is free but also because the quality of components is not quite as good. On the ones I've used the touch screens don't seem to be quite as responsive as the iPad. In any case, where does this leave the Windows tablets? Selling at a premium to the iPad? I don't think so.
It sounds like maybe Microsoft's internal priesthood have finally gained a firm upper hand and are now letting their identity delusions fully dictate pricing decisions. So is this Windows for The Faithful now, and paying up to own a copy is really a tithe to the Church of Redmond? Yeah... I think I'll stick with secularism. When Windows 7 runs off the rails I hope I'll finally be prepped to make the switch to something else. I'll be damned if I'm doing Unity, but I'm sure as hell not doin' Metro either!
A premium price for Windows tablets would make sense if Microsoft plans to leverage their (strangle)hold on the business world. The argument would be "you know how to manage and secure Windows desktops. By paying this premium for Windows tablets, you get tablet devices that you can similarly control, thereby reducing Total Cost of Ownership."
But that would mean Microsoft is abandoning, or at least substantially downplaying, the consumer, and ceding that ground to Android and iOS. That -would be- a bet-the-company move for Ballmer, et.al.
All the reports say WinRT is including Office RT. Its as simple as that. WinRT comes with Office, so it costs more.
Win8 bundled with Office would cost more, too.
Every year, hardware gets cheaper. They may be thinking that if the comsumer price point for the device is $400 and the hardware cost just dropped by $50, they can still charge that extra $50 to the consumer (via the OEM) and pocket the the profit. The price is still what the consumer was expecting, but MS just got richer.
That's a lot of money when we're talking about OEMs. It pushes what would be a $400 tablet to $500, and suddenly it's competing against the iPad. With those kinds of licensing costs you're not going to have an easy time in the low end at all, and Windows 8 will get totally destroyed by Apple in the high end.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Touch enabled devices does not mean specifically tablets or phones. MS has long seen their demise and plans to corner the touch enabled coffee table market. Truly they are visionaries!
How are Windows tablet suppliers supposed to compete with Android when they're lumbered with a massive licence cost for the software? It's certainly not going to happen at the low end of the scale and it's hard to see how it can happen in the middle either.
Dude, it's Microsoft, of course it's stupid and crappy. Where have you been for the last 30 years?
Presumably there is a high level business executive at Microsoft saying, "Let's create an also-ran copycat tablet OS, charge way more money than the successful competitors with already huge markets, and dump billions into it. Obviously people will buy it because [unintelligible]. Sound good? It's a plan, then!"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yes, the strategy does seem to be to find a way to be crushed between Android on the low end and Apple on the high. I believe they can achieve it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
^ pardon me, I believe you dropped this.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Prong 2 is to make Android cost more by continuing to engage catspawns to sue the pants off of any OEMs who use it until they knuckle under and buy patent licenses.
Oracle just took a swing and a miss, but they were burdened by a legacy of being in the business of making actual products. The next tranch of rabid puppets will be pure patent trolls with no history of reasonable behaviour to hold them back.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
ya right. if you think dell, acer and hp are paying $50 per pc for windows 7 hp --- i want what you're smoking. it's closer to half that, then when they get paid for adding all the extra crud, they actually *make* money on pre-loaded software -- which is why no-OS computers cost as much (or more) than ones with windows.
the need for AV on Microsoft products
What need for antivirus? Windows RT runs only applications preinstalled on the device and applications obtained through the Windows Store unless you're a registered developer.
shareholders have been waiting patiently for a decade to see some share appreciation on MSFT
How is this necessary? Why can't shareholders just treat MSFT as a value stock that pays dividends instead of a growth stock, like in other mature markets?
Let's do a little math here: Let's say you're a major hardware maker (Let's say.... Sony, since HP already has it's own tablet OS if they were smart enough to use it).
You're planning to manufacture at least 100,000 units. At $80 per, that's 8 Million just to license the OS. Never mind the development of the hardware, the manufacture of the hardware, component costs, packaging and marketing.
At some point, some bean-counter is going to consider that it is cheaper to buy another company that already has a tablet OS than it is to license MS's piece of crap that won't be supported in two years (How's that Zune doing for you?)
The point is: There's better alternatives that are cheaper, and if you're in a price war for the low-end of the market (because there's only one player in the high-end of the market), every dollar saved is important.
I mean, think of it this way: If HP could figure out how to actually make a profit selling $99 touchpads, they'd be the market leader right now.
And by the time Microsoft actually gets into the game, $99 tablets might be a reality. Who's going to build a $99 tablet where $80 of that cost if the OS? It just ain't happening.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
How, specifically, would a Windows RT tablet let you retouch photos, edit sound, and produce HTML5 web applications any easier than an Android tablet? If the Android applications themselves are "slow and kludgy", developers of the Android applications can fix the Android applications.
IMHO, I bet they are looking at the bigger picture:
To the OEM, Yes, that's $95 per copy, oh, but you want to become a Certified Specialist Tablet Maker and be exclusive to us, then that'll be $20 per license, sign contract here....
Didn't they do something like this way back when with Windows licensing for OEMs that got them in trouble with the DOJ and have anti-trust provisions forced on them. And now that the anti-trust is off their back, I'm guessing that they have had time to make sure they word their contracts in such a way to prevent the same thing from happening again.
Actually, to be cynical, I don't really see how the DOJ and Anti-trust suits changed anything in MS anyways, so maybe they are just thinking: screw it, we'll do it, get slapped again, give away some free licenses and be back to business as usual with full control over the market before the 'punishment' can begin. It's just conjecture, but if I crossed my mind I'm sure it has crossed others who actually have some power to do this....
using the tablet as a medium to transfer viruses
Is this true to a greater extent than, say, using a USB flash drive as a medium to transfer viruses?
Since Microsoft is going for an even higher price bracket than the iPad:
Raise your hand if you have an iPad and would trade it for a Microsoft tablet.
Raise your hand if you have an iPad and would also buy a Microsoft tablet.
Raise your hand if you don't have a tablet - but want one - and the iPad doesn't do what you want so you'll spend the extra to get a Microsoft tablet.
ARM existed before Microsoft had any products for it
True, the ARM architecture has been around since ARM was part of Acorn. But the operating systems it was originally meant to run (Apple's Newton OS and Acorn's RISC OS) were practically discontinued by the turn of the millennium, and Microsoft has made Windows CE for it since 1997.
Then the kids will finally discover the joys of mail merge and start sharing their hip-hop playlists with their friends at the Microsoft store.
Or vaginas.
Let's see, searching, searching, searching in the OP for a mention that Windows RT includes $400 software prepackaged....searching...not mentioned. What a surprise! People mentioned it here already, oft ignored or told you can use a "free" alternative like Google Docs, which isn't nearly as powerful as Microsoft Office. Or OpenOffice and LibreOffice for that matter. So, a license for a ~$200 OS and a ~$400 office suite (both retail) for $85 at the OEM level is somehow an awful deal.
Every so often I will be watching a TV show, and low an behold in some office environment a tablet will be whipped out like it is an everyday tool that they use in their business.. Now perhaps with Office on it, that could become a reality but I think in real (non TV) life, at least at the moment, it's mostly just fiction.. I also believe that it is going to be a hard fought battle for tablets to become a workplace staple.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
This is going to be one of the deciding factors to switch to a "legit" hackintosh or not...
MSFT will do backroom deals with OEMs to drop the price of Windows RT, if the OEM helps MSFT, for instance, by stopping making Android devices.
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/12/04/08/0546247/google-earns-2-per-handset-apple-575
So Apple makes $575 per IOS device, but Microsoft can't ask for $85? What is that?
Once upon a time, HP was extremely proud of their tablet stuff. The marketplace showed them that it did not share this view. The rest is history. I predict a similarly rude awakening for Microsoft here.The tablet market is not the PC market, not by a long shot.
Yes, the usb storage can only passively hold the virus, it cannot execute it
Nor can an ARM tablet running Windows RT execute software that 1. is for x86 and 2. has not been signed by Microsoft.
We are anonymous, etc, etc...
It seemed to me that WOA/WinRT was directly aimed at killing off ARM devices being made by OEMs. In particular WebOS by HP. It was likely that could have had some success, but WOA (Windows on ARM) meant that HP could lose MS's 'loyalty' discount on all products.
Seriously, Windows has become such a joke, it has become its own parody.
It the situation wouldn’t be so desperate in general... with OS X and Gnome basically trying everything to remove as much functionality and flexibility freedom as possible, and KDE trying to be Windows 7 too... this would be really funny.
(And as a power user, I find XFCE to be just as crippling, but uglier than Gnome.)
The only choice nowadays, is writing your own graphical shell and tool suite. (Luckily, that's exactly what I'm doing. And it specifically will NEVER EVER cater to the "average user", but to people who want to actually use their computer as a computer, instead of as a fixed-function appliance.)
Do you really belive that the OS will refuse to run a worm because it is not signed?
Signing your software is great for defeating trojans, but it can't do anything about your other security problems.
Rethinking email
"Whether this is a good plan, with x86 tablets and their full 20-year PC ecosystem also vying for market share, remains to be seen."
One mans ecosystem is another mans monopoly ..
... if they wouldn't be making money from their app store. Using both income sources is probably too greedy on the desktop market in which they are already dominant. Possibly even worse in a niche market in which they are already late.
The Reason WinRT costs more to license is that it includes a license for the Office Suite. All WinRT devices come with Office built-in. They are, in fact, the ONLY desktop applications that will run on WinRT devices (you can't install your own). That's a whole separate issue.
But it explains the price difference pretty completely, doesn't it?
How much is a regular Win7 OEM license plus an Office OEM license? I bet it's about the same, no? Or even more?
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
With those kinds of licensing costs you're not going to have an easy time in the low end at all
And given the hardware requirements for certification they are not intending to compete in the low end, that's for Android.
and Windows 8 will get totally destroyed by Apple in the high end.
Do you not see how that is just blatant fanboyism? You haven't even tried a Windows RT tablet yet you already dismiss it with no reasons as to why.
I thought we already learned this from all the Wii homebrew cracks. The Wii OS only runs 1. signed code, 2. packages that appear signed to the defective signature verifier (lol strncmp), and 3. code injected with a combination of a buffer overflow and a DEP defect.