Slashdot Mirror
Leak Hints Windows 8 Tablets May Be Dearer Than Makes Sense
MrSeb writes "If, like me, you thought Microsoft would price Windows RT competitively, you were wrong: A leaked slide from Asus says that its Vivo Tab RT, due to be released alongside Windows RT at the end of October, will start at $600. Unbelievably, this is $100 more than the iPad 3, and a full $200 more than the iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. For $600, you would expect some sensational hardware specs — but alas, that's sadly not the case. The Vivo Tab RT has a low-res 10.1-inch 1366×768 IPS display, quad-core Tegra 3 SoC, 2GB of RAM, NFC, 8-megapixel camera and that's about it. Like its Androidesque cousin, the Transformer, the Vivo Tab RT can be plugged into a keyboard/battery dock — but it'll cost you another $200 for the pleasure. (Curiously, the Transformer's docking station only costs $150 — go figure.)"
I like this plan.
Bye Bye, Microsoft.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
So you get software no one likes in hardware no one would pay for. That sounds like a recipe for success.
If you really want to use Windows, you need to pay up for the privilege. I think it's too cheap; they should start these Windows tablets at $2000. I'm sure millions of people will be lining up to buy these things.
(Hopefully Steve is reading this.)
Perhaps Microsoft has decided they need to make money instead of doing loss leaders.
To make money, you have to sell product.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Perhaps this approach by OEMs is why Microsoft felt the need to produce its own Surface line. It'll be interesting to see how the pricing compares once they announce it.
This all pencils out. Everyone wants Microsoft Windows on a tablet. They're already lining up for it. It's Windows -- the same interface, the same applications, compatibility with all the Microsoft back end processes, and all documents of any type made by Microsoft products will open on it. Regular security releases and bug fixes will keep it in great shape, and Internet Explorer is a joy to use. For all that, of course people will be willing to pay a premium price for the product. This isn't arrogance, it's due recognition of our own excellence. We've owned the desktop for decades; this obviously means we have a superior product.
Additionally, charging a higher price creates a mindset of a premium product. Charging a price competitive with those made-in-China boxes running not-Windows will make us seem as useless as them. People are willing to pay for excellence.
(Please mod this funny so I don't lose all faith in humanity...)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
RT is what Microsoft is calling the ARM version of the OS. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_RT. Windows Runtime ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Runtime ) is the Run Time. Confused yet? :)
K Man
Ok, I'll give you that. But now they're competing in a commodity market. Microsoft doesn't really understand competitive, commodity markets.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Some MBA did up a presentation where they could make an absurd profit on each unit and then success will happen at only 10% of iPad sales.
In order to switch from an iPad to a Windows unit it would have to be so much better, so way much better, way way better. So unless it unfolds into a private jet that then flies me to my private island that comes with it I will predict that they will jig the stats on sales (force people to warehouse them and then prebook the sales) and in the end it will be Zune 2.
Right now there are two ways to sell a tablet to consumers, sell them an iPad or sell them something that looks exactly like an iPad for way less. The only possible third way would be something way better; thus MS will have had to vastly improve upon technologies that are near the leading edge of what is possible. So better than retina? Better battery life without making it an inch thick? Thinner/lighter electronics? Vastly better GUI? Vastly better Processor? Better Apps?
If MS were really lucky and had the best engineers on the planet and could get their first effort perfect I could see slight improvements on all of the above but not enough to touch Apple's marketing or enough to justify a monster price.
My prediction is that MS is going to make this all enterprisey. It will tie into office and other MS crap in a horribly incestuous way. They will provide white papers to the CTO types saying how this can improve data security and fine grain control over the user experience. What they are forgetting here is that one of the reasons for Apple's ability to break into the Enterprise market is that they don't cater to the enterprise market's OCD about ruining the user experience. I am sure that this is what killed the BlackBerry; those phones are actually pretty good. But RIM gave the telcos and sys admins too much say over what could be turned off on the phones. Many a corporate user had a complete dud of a phone after all the good bits were turned off in the name of security and productivity. Apple looks at this and just asks "Why would we allow you to ruin our phones?" Over the last few years the better companies have had a policy of BYOD that is a real winner among the employees who are the reason the company exists and a real pain among old school admins.
So basically crappy companies are going to buy a handful of these new tablets and their employees are going to put them into the microwave hoping that if they ruin enough of them they will get an iPad; or at least not have to suffer the Metro UI.
Windows RT is the name Microsoft gave Windows 8 when it is running on ARM chips. WinRT is the name of the new Metro framework.
"Dearer"? You mean more expensive?
No sig today...
Because Microsoft is charging Asus a lot of money for Windows RT, and that's why the tablet is so expensive? Should Asus maybe sell these things at a loss so that Microsoft can compete against Android?
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
British English! Dearer = more expensive.
MS never had to be price oriented, they held a monopoly on consumer and enterprise desktops, and had a pretty good market share of servers. To the point where competitors effectively had to be free to compete, not because of technical superiority but because of how the market was stacked against them.
The trouble for MS is it doesn't have that lead in the mobile space. Its now forced, whether it acknowledges it or not to compete on:
Cost and UI matter to regular consumers, Cost and Technical Merit (maybe including a bit of UI as it relates to funcationality rather than prettiness/bragging rights) matter to techies.
MS's problem is the first group aren't going to be impressed with Notro compared to Apple or Android, especially if the devices are going to cost significantly more. The second group remember enough about MS's business practices from the 90's and 00's as to be warey of accepting them.
There is another possibility, maybe it's not the MS license knocking up the price, ASUS might not be expecting big sales from these devices and so are hoping to cover R&D costs with a smaller number of sales by bumping up the unit price?
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
This may simply be evidence that the Win 8 tablet platform is intended for the business audience.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Windows RT will come in Office 2013 Preview which would also be up-gradable to the final version when it launches.
Inconveniently, though, Office 2013 matters somewhat less to home users and Windows RT(since it can't be bound to a domain or controlled by standard group policy for any price) is of somewhat less interest to business users...
I'm not saying that they won't sell any; but by gimping AD in favor of some goofy 'Yeah, sure, go ahead and pretend its a smartphone or something, I hate you.' management 'app', they've substantially spoiled the appeal for the IT-heavy we-cannot-use-any-software-not-feature-identical-to-Office-and-ideally-compatible-with-IE6-so-we-can-still-get-to-our-cutting-edge-'intranet portal' segment, and at $600 for mediocre specs(2 GB of RAM is high by tablet standards; but cheap shit by Windows-machine standards) they'll need a pretty compelling argument that I need 100% Office, rather than the Office-compatibleish offerings on iDevices or Android things, since the same $600 will get me a shiny new 32GB iPad or a Transformer prime infinity from Asus' android side...
I just checked two US English dictionaries and they both listed that use. I don't think we can blame the original poster for your poor command of the language...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
A 15.6" 1080p 16:9 screen is nice. 14" is pushing it. 13.3 gets annoying. 10.1 is fucking ridiculous, aren't Windows 8 tablets meant to be productivity devices? Why the hell do they all (including the MS surface) have stretched out 16:9 screens that are awful for doing any real work in landscape mode with a keyboard attached?
Apple are the only ones who understand this, which is why all Apple laptops except the 11.6" Macbook Air (I guess it needed to be wide enough for the keyboard to fit, and even 11.6" 16:9 is nowhere as ridiculous as 10.1" 16:9) come with 16:10 screens, the ONLY manufacturer that I know of who still sell 16:10 laptops.
Take these prices with a grain of salt though, OEMs have a habit of pricing products rather hopefully before cutting prices to the point where stuff sells. I guess a Windows license costs a bit more than Google apps/Google Play license + Microsoft tax on Android devices (ALL major Android tablet and phone makers except Motorola and Sony pay Microsoft for every Android device they sell). But Android tablets with similar specs from Lenovo etc. are selling for $300 and even less with cash backs etc. A mid range Win RT tablet should be available for $400-450 in the market.
Ah those funky English people. They speak English funny
Trialware is great and all, but I'd hardly call it a feature if you have to pay for the 'upgrade'
From the MS "Office Next" blog:
Getting Office Home & Student 2013 RT
Office Home & Student 2013 RT is only available on Windows RT devices and is not sold standalone. The Windows RT devices available at Windows RT General Availability will include preview editions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. After the final edition of Office Home & Student 2013 RT is released in a customer's language, their Windows RT device will be automatically updated with the final edition for free via Windows Update (Wi-Fi connection required). Customers can expect to get these updates starting in early November through January depending on their language. We'll publish the specific update schedule on October 26 on the Office blog.
Office Next
'dearer' = 'more expensive' in real Engrish as well.
I drank what? -- Socrates
I'm totally looking forward to creating Excel spreadsheets on a touch screen.
I don't know, I paid $40 for DOS 6 when games were $50, I'd say that's cheap, especially since it came with DoubleSpace. Most people aren't Microsoft's customers, they're Asus and Dell and HP customers. I doubt that more than $10 went to MS when you bought a computer. Enterprise customers are their customers, not you. Now, Office seems expensive unless you put it next to Photoshop are worse, SAS.
You're confusing them with Apple. Apple computers are way more expensive than Windows computers, but Apples are percieved to be higher quality. I just don't see how MS can sell a tablet at a higher price than an iPad and expect anyone to buy them. Folks buy Apple to be kewl and show off how much money they have, you can't say that about MS.
Look how the Zune flopped, and it wasn't as expensive as an iPod. There's no way anyone is going to be willing to pay more for a Windows computer than an Apple computer.
Meanwhile, when I get a tablet it will be a cheap Android. Apples cost too much and Windows has too few features compared to kubuntu.
Free Martian Whores!
While I would define it more as 'valuable', or 'having a high value', it certainly means that in modern American English. It isn't that the word has changed meaning. It is that people mimic words that others have said without understanding the meaning. (Another good example is the word "Sorry".) When you start a letter "Dear Nancy", a wedding starts with "Dearly Beloved", or you just call your wife "Dear", the word means person "of great value".
As soon as I saw the word Dear in the title, I knew that people would come out of the woodwork complaining about it because they didn't know the definition of a word they have used most of their lives. The real question is... What do THEY think the word "Dear" means?
I don't disagree as that seems to be how Microsoft has marketed their products over the last bunch of years ... I'm just not sure they fully get that people are looking for devices which do things other than Office documents and Exchange.
I think RIM is demonstrating quite nicely that what consumers want is stuff that isn't what businesses want. And the consumer market is actually quite a bit bigger than the corporate one.
Unfortunately, Microsoft often still sees the world as about being able to access Office and Exchange. And I'm betting far more people don't need that than do in this market -- for me personally, I have no use for that, but I've no doubt that for some people the ability to get their company email or access the TPS report from home is absolutely critical.
I think when Microsoft comes to terms with the fact that a shocking amount of people don't need Office and Exchange, they might figure out what features they should be putting into tablets.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Dearer"? You mean more expensive?
In NZ and Oz, "dear" is more commonly used than "expensive".
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Do you honestly believe that the majority of people that buy Apple products...do so as a status symbol?? I know that is the often quoted opinion on /. , but do people really believe that deep down?
I mean, I own a few apple products. I have an old iphone 3gs, and am likely to going to get the new iPhone 5. but I dunno what a status symbol that is. I mean, it spends most of the time in my pocket, and honestly, when you whip one out...well, it is no big deal as that so many other people out there have them...it is kind of a commodity phone. I'd dare say any smart phone these days is pretty much a commodity object, and seems most people out there have one.
As for a mac computer....well, I do have a macbook pro I bought myself last xmas...but that stays largely at home..I bought it for some stills and video production I wanted to do with my gift I gave myself this year...a Canon 5D3.
Sure, these are both $$$ things...but, I got them because they were perceived to me as being the best I could get for my money I could afford...for some things I wanted to do. Best tool for the job and all.
But really...I don't think that many people even notice if you pull out an Apple product....to most people I think...it is just another "phone", or "laptop" or "tablet".....I don't perceive any social stigma related to them by anyone that pulls them out these days. Does anyone else really see it that way?
I mean, I don't give anyone a sideways glance really if they pull out a computer, smartphone or tablet....today those are all just commodity type gear IMHO....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
So, I found the almost full specs.
Vivo Tab RT | iPad
Resolution: 1366×768 | 2048 × 1536
Screen Size: 10.1" | 9.7"
CPU: 1.4 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 | 1.0 GHz dual-core
GPU: 12-core ULP GeForce | quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4
RAM: 2 GB | 1 GB
Rear Camera: 8 MP LED Flash | 5 MP no Flash
Front Camera: 2 MP | 0.3 MP
Sensors: Mag, Accel, Gyro, Light | Mag, Accel, Gyro, Light
Wireless: 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 | 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
Expansion: USB port | Apple 30 pin + $30 dongles Office: Office RT (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote) | None Storage: 32GB | 32GB
Price: $599 | $599
So the iPad wins on the screen and that's about it. Now, the iPad is about 6 months old, so it's a bit of an unfair comparison, but this is the comparison people will make until the iPad 4 is released. This particular tablet has more horsepower, better cameras, equivalent sensors and storage, included Office, native USB port.... What's left to know is size/weight/battery, but those should be comparable as well. All for the same price as the iPad.
Webster (a US dictionary) shows the 4th definition of the adjective dear:
high or exorbitant in price : expensive "eggs are very dear just now"
This article is horrible. It lists prices for the ASUS tablet and then concludes that Windows RT (the Operating System) is overpriced. The only relevant piece of information in this article is the fact that manufacturers have said that "in June multiple OEMs said that Microsoft was charging between $80 and $95 for a Windows RT license". Using the overall price of the tablet and then concluding that the cost of Windows RT is the reason is horrible, horrible logic. Go to the primary source and figure out how the price of Windows RT ($80-$95) differs from the price of Android.
Second, you may have noticed that "Sebatian Anthony" is the author of the article (he probably gets paid by ExtremeTech according to the number of pageviews he gets). You may have also noticed that the submitter for this article is "MrSeb" and if you follow the link it leads back to Sebastian Anthony. Yup, the article's author is the same person who submitted it to Slashdot so that he could make money. This wouldn't be so bad if the article wasn't so horribly written. Just take a look at the comments in the article (mostly negative about Sebastian's leaps of logic) and compare them to the comments on Slashdot (mostly positive, probably because Slashdot loves bad press about Microsoft). Stop getting this shitty article-writer paid.
On a side note, I happen to remember seeing Sebastian Anthony on the old (now gone) "Download Squad". He was a huge advocate of piracy and used all kinds of crappy logic to justify piracy. I'm glad to see his lack of intelligent reasoning extends to his other articles as well.
(a good IPS panel with a capacitive sensor isn't cheap, not that 1366x768 is 'good')
This is what pisses me off these days: on a 10" device made for looking at kittens on the internet, a 1366x768 IPS screen is considered "bad". But on my 12" notebook, where I actually need a good display for e.g. Photoshop or Lightroom while on the go, a 1366x768 IPS screen would be an *upgrade*. The display situation on laptops is seriously FUBAR...
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
Now when I call my girlfriend, "Dear," I know in my head which definition I really mean.
"Dearer"? You mean more expensive?
In NZ and Oz, "dear" is more commonly used than "expensive".
For example,
I don't mind venison, my only problem with venison is that it's a bit deer.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.