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Microsoft To Sell Its Own Windows RT Tablet
Glasswire writes "ComputerWorld reports that Microsoft will announce a Microsoft-branded tablet on Monday running the Win RT (ARM-based) subset version of Win 8. MSFT choose not to offer a x86 Win 8 version, which could have given them a performance advantage over ARM-based Apple iPads. A PCMag opinion piece titled 'A Microsoft Tablet Would Be Dumb' says, 'The only real reason to introduce a Microsoft-branded tablet is because Microsoft couldn't get anyone else to make a Windows RT tablet.' No reaction yet from Microsoft's system OEM customers that it will now be competing with."
That helps clear up the mystery of why MSFT raised the price of RT for OEMs.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
As the GP pointed out, if Google can buy Motorola and own the Xoom and the RAZR, what's wrong w/ Microsoft having its own tablet or phone? In fact, given that most OEMs sub-contract that work out to the likes of Foxconn, LiteOn and other actual manufacturers in China and Taiwan, does Microsoft have anything to lose by doing exactly that, getting someone to make a tablet specifically for them, and then putting their logo on it? They're not even making it, so the end product will be no better nor worse than other vendors. Only difference will be Windows RT vs Android vs iOS, but that's a real Microsoft vs Google vs Apple differentiator.
Particularly given that since they want to price it higher than either Apple or Google/Mot, chances are that no vendor would want to bat for them w/ such a market disadvantage. So Microsoft is probably pitching this themselves, hoping that their brand name will help sell it.
Only odd decision of theirs, though - they'd have done better to have gone w/ either Medfield or Fusion, rather than ARM.
"MSFT choose"? Seriously?
Using business and other organizational names as collective rather than singular nouns is more common in British than in American English, but both usages are increasingly acceptable on both sides of the Atlantic. Your objection is silly, unless of course you're complaining about the use of the stock ticker symbol in place of the company name, which I agree is an abomination.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
If previous reports of >$80 for OEM WinRT are correct, only Microsoft can reasonably afford to build low end Windows RT tablets, as the $80 becomes prohibitive software cost for low end tablets (where WinRT will compete). For Microsoft it is just inter-divisional funny money.
How do HW OEMs compete with a $200 Kindle Fire (or rumored Google Branded $200 tablet) when saddled with $80+ OS?
From the post: "...running the Win RT (ARM-based ) subset version of Win 8."
Clearly implies Win RT is based on Win 8, but a subset, since you cannot run legacy Win apps and is missing many other full Win 8 features.
Full Win8 is only available in x86 version.
Why is it that Microsoft can't seem to do anything until some one else does it and it's usually Apple? Apple used a windows environment before Microsoft. Zune came after virtually everyone else had a music player so it never had much of a chance. Now they suddenly decide it's time to get into tablets? FYI there are other examples, just making a point. Just seems like a poor business model to wait until market saturation to launch a product. If Apple launches a TV can we expect a Microsoft TV a few years after? I didn't include things like a portable OS because they have tried that before but it didn't take off where as Android and iOS have done well. They just seem to wait until others take the risk then get their feet wet once the pool is full.
This is ./ , what doe you expect from us you...you...Anonymouse Coward!
dotslash?
Is that slashdot's evil counterpart from a parallel universe?
No -- you want administration tools that you can use to manage an enterprise's corral of tablets and smartphones. Surprisingly, Apple offered this for the iPhone years ago as part of their OS X Server package that allowed for the adding/removing of apps and permissions for all registered devices on the network. Not sure if it still exists in Lion Server -- but it stands to reason it should.
Expecting them to come up with a brand new Tablet OS just for your IT dept needs did give me a chuckle though.
But rest assured, I'm sure they'll rip-off Apple (as usual) and come up with a device administrator for you to play with.
The stock symbol usage seems to come from those who have started thinking the worth of a company whose product you use is not the product but the value of the company. Personally, I think a company that makes obscene boatloads of money is charging too much.
Yeah, over there it's a well edited, properly moderated, fully functioning technology discussion website. It also has a goatee.
My understanding if Google charged for Android and if Google didn't allow OEMs to modify Android then there would be more outcry. Android isn't quite free as Google gets their money from advertising and services and Google is starting to put in more requirements for Android. The main worry here is that OEMs have to pay for Win RT. MS will pay nothing and will be at an advantage in terms of cost. The latest rumor is $80 per tablet. For a $500 tablet, that is a significant amount of money. Second is that MS can relax requirements for themselves for Win RT which OEMs cannot do.
Besides screwing over OEMs, what else does MS can do? Many OEMs are still a little miffed about Zune where they supported PlaysForSure for years trying to battle Apple only to have MS abandon them with Zune only DRM that locked them out of the market. While music is no longer DRM laden, video and books still have DRM attached.
The last thing is MS has not been very successful at hardware. Sure mice and keyboards are okay. But Zune was a flop. Kin was a flop. Xbox is finally in the black of almost 9 years of being supported by Windows and Office revenue. If Xbox was a separate company they would have had to declare bankruptcy or leave the business like NEC and Sega.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Google pulled something off? They have a near monopoly with their search engine. Let's see.. what else... oh.. a few people use gmail... and... ????
Stuff that has failed:
Google+
Google X (google rebranded with an OSX theme.. it lasted a day)
Google catalog
web accelerator
Google Video (this was going to whip YouTube... planb was apparently to just buy youtube)
google answers - pay us $10 to answer a question for you researched using google
google wave
wiki search
google audio ads
google dodgeball (like foursquare)
jaiku (like twitter)
google notebook
google pagecreator
google buzz
froogle
google coupons
voice search
google viewer (instead of search results page... display them like a slideshow)
google checkout
print ads
realtime search
google labs
google lively
orkut
friend connect
google latitude
knol
google health
igoogle
google click-to-call
google sidewiki
goog-411
google tv
google radio ads
google shared stuff (bookmarking site)
searchmash
google search timeline
google bookmark lists
google desktop
fast flip
google pack
google web security
image labeler
subscribed links
app inventor
City Tours
Google Breadcrumb
Google News Timeline
Google Sets
Google Squared
Google Talk Guru
Image Swirl
Places Directory
Realtime Mytracks
Script Converter
Sputnik.
OK.. that's enough for now. There's more... that's just what I could remember + what i could find in 5 mintues.
Why would anyone count on google to pull off *ANY* project over Microsoft. At least Microsoft has more than 1 profitable project.
Search
Adwords
Adsense
Gmail
Youtube
Google Docs
Maps
Android
Chrome
Google Earth
Analytics
Blogger
Anyone who can beat Microsoft comprehensively at browsers, phone OSs, and search shouldn't be dismissed.
"There are 30 million active Xbox Live accounts, which must make them a great deal of pure profit."
Go to http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/fy12/Q2/default.aspx Here you can look at their financial statements for the last few years. Check the line item that shows the Operating income for the Entertainment and Devices Division on the statments going back to 2004. I put together a table:
2004 (1,220)
2005 (391)
2006 (1,284)
2007 (1,892)
2008 497
2009 169
2010 618
2011 1,324
At the end of fiscal year 2011, the entertainment and devices division was still about $2.2 billion in the hole. Now the first two quarters of 2012 were good( a total of $880 million) but look here: http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY12/Q3/default.aspx They lost $229 million this past quarter. That means they are still about $1.5 billion in the hole on this little Xbox venture. And with their Online services consistently losing money( in the billions), they better hope Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 are huge this year.