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Samsung Won't Release Windows RT Tablet In US
New submitter sandoval88419 writes "During CES the U.S. head of Samsung Tablet business announced they won't release Windows RT devices in the U.S. Explanations are low demand, heavy investment to educate the consumer on the differences between windows RT and 8 and more importantly the effort to keep a low retail price with the Microsoft offering. "
You don't become the leading smartphone manufacturer by being a sucker.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Funny the Slashdot community skipped right over the news Microsoft sold 60 million licenses so far. this place really is the fox news of tech.
Because:
1) That's actually a low rate for Windows adoption;
2) More importantly, it provides no information at all on sales of Windows RT tablets.
How many of those licences are installed on computers currently sitting in warehouses and on the shelves at Best Buy? They're in the channel (on all new PCs, whether people want it or not), not necessarily in the end user's hands.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
heavy investment to educate the consumer on the differences between windows RT and 8
I still think it was an absurdly foolish decision not to make Windows 8 and Windows RT obviously and distinctly separate products. Call it Windows Tablet or something. Even for people who do know the difference (8 = 7 with a wider start menu, RT = locked down tablet OS), you often need to drill down to the 'tech specs' page when looking at tablets in order to tell whether it has a useful OS or not.
Grandma can take Microsoft Office back for a refund because it is already included in RT
Arguably, this is not true. Samsung has a vested interest in being the brand consumers associate with mobile products; the more they build up any one OS, the less their individual brand grows. They need to balance the risk that Google poses with Motorola with their association with Android.
However, Microsoft doesn't offer them any improvement over developing their own platform, since they can't create a Samsung "look and feel" on that platform.
OEM buys the licenses beforehand.
All MS has to do is say "Ok, instead of having 1 months supply of Windows 8 licenses I need you to buy 5 months ahead of time!"
Then MS releases a press release saying "OMG DEMAND FOR WINDOWS 8 WENT UP 500%!" Intentionally, exgerated of course but that is my point. We all know the accounting tricks of Vista numbers where people and businesses bought them but wiped them and downgraded to XP.
Online website counters are the real way to predict adoption. If anyone is interested in the real number of people *actually using* windows 8 click here from statcounter who checks millions of websites each day? Windows 8 was 2% the last I looked. In comparison Windows 7 jumped 3x more in the same time period 3 years ago!
In otherwords it is a dud.
http://saveie6.com/
You don't buy something for your Macbook and expect it to run on your iPhone "because it's all Apple, look, it's similar"
iOS and OSX look completely different.
You don't buy something for Android and expect it to run on your Linux desktop "because it's all Linux underneath, right?"
I've never seen a Linux distro with an Android-like UI out of the box. The closest I've seen are the tablet UI's for KDE or Enlightenment e17, but neither of those are enabled out of the box, either, and it'd be difficult to mistake either one for Android even if they were.
You don't buy something for your Windows 8 desktop and expect it to run on your Windows tablet. IMHO, Microsoft has the advantage in that it's going to deliver a tablet with actually Windows 8 x86 capable of running those apps "grandma bought".
Oh wait. I can't make the same argument, here. The two UI's are virtually identical in this case.
You're not thinking like a user.
Except RIM has been on the decline for some time now, while windows phone has been growing. Take a look at Gartner's quarterly unit sales over the past year. BB10 still isn't out, and if it reversed rims fortune at all, will take many months to do so.
Except RIM still holds about 11% of NA marketshare compared to about 2% for Windows Phone. And as we've seen Windows Phone isn't exactly growing.
Grandma bought $app for her Android (v1.23) tablet because she knows that it runs Android. Except it is only supported on v4.56.
Then she didn't buy it from the Google Play store or any other decent Android app store. They check compatibility.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Or put another way
Windows 8 Usage Sinks Below Vista Levels
Windows 7 had more than 10 times the usage at this point in its lifecycle
http://www.dailytech.com/Windows+8+Usage+Sinks+Below+Vista+Levels/article29546.htm