Slashdot Mirror
Asus CEO On Windows RT: "We're Out."
symbolset writes "AllThingsD's intrepid reporter Ina Fried has an interview up where Asus chairman and CEO Jonney Shih says they will not make any more Windows RT devices until Microsoft proves demand for the product. This leaves Dell as the only OEM who has not sworn off Windows RT. Dell is seeking to take itself private, relying on a $2 billion loan from Microsoft."
Turns out people want things that are the size of a laptop to work as well as a laptop.
So that you can make hardware that doesn't depend on MS?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Company doesn't want to make a product that the market doesn't want to buy. The interesting part is that this is, somehow, news.
Couldn't even RTFS?
It's always confirmation bias!
How many MBAs does it take to miss that mind-boggingly obvious fact?
Here's some free advice if anyone important is reading this (haha):
Want to be wildly successful? Go invest a lot of time and money into figuring our how to make a 8.5 x 11" replacement for paper. That includes being able to write and draw engineering diagrams with a 0.2mm tip.
I've wanted one of those forever, I'd be willing to bet a lot of professionals out there have the same problem - the ipad is close, but not quite big enough, and it doesn't have written input.
"Me too" doesn't cut it. Have some vision, Microsoft. I dare you.
..don't panic
A version of MS Office which supports touch poorly is not a killer app.
Ya but how well did they want this thing to work anyway?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
No idea. Doesn't say in the summary or the article.
bets?
Judging from the highly (over?) produced tv ads that were out for these things I'm guessing pretty badly.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
> Doesn't say in the summary
????
"This leaves Dell as the only OEM who has not sworn off Windows RT."
The Samsung ARM Chromebook is still the best selling laptop on Amazon. The second best seller is the cheapest Windows (not RT) laptop from Dell. Windows RT devices do not appear on the list at all. It appears the market really doesn't care about touchscreens, but does care about price and battery life.
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories-Laptop/zgbs/pc/565108
Company doesn't want to make a product that the market doesn't want to buy. The interesting part is that this is, somehow, news.
I don't have the time or inclination to study the sales of all the different products and OSes out there. The headline has told me many things and if I want to develop a new Windows RT app, I'll know that my only market is going to be a Dell device.
And after whatever transaction happens with Dell in terms of takeover, any Windows RT products that aren't selling well may be getting cut to streamline the business so that they can pay back the debt or backers of the buyout.
Windows RT is doomed.
I think the summary is a bit skewed. Yes, Mr. Dell will be getting a 2b loan from Microsoft – which in the entire buy out thing is not a big deal. It’s a loan, so no equity, so no control. And it is not even the largest loan.
I own an Asus WinRT tablet - I actually love the tablet software, but hate the hardware. I say this as a person that owns multiple other tablets (2 Android tablets, a HP Touchpad, and brought but returned an iPad) WinRT is "enough" Windows to be useful that I can use it in place of a laptop in a pinch, but still enough tablet. My beef is the Asus hardware sucks, such as:
Poor design (dock connector digs into my hand, needs adapter for USB port, etc)
Poor reliability (3 warranty repair trips, including one time it didn't even work when it came back)
Poor support (Warranty turnaround time slow, have to provide my own box/pay for shipping, etc)
I very much like Windows RT, but hate the Asus tablet and wish I bought an MS Surface. Asus, you're the problem on this one, not MS.
Whoosh!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Back when it was "beleagured Apple", $150m from Microsoft in AAPL non-voting stock, and the string was "Microsoft will continue to develop Office:Mac."
Now, $2bn to take Dell private, and the string is "don't do anything non Microsoft"
So, it's "Here's a token amount, and our commitment to support you", or "Here's a large amount, and we pwn you"
Michael Dell, I'd re-negotiate, and go for the small amount...
"She's furniture with a pulse"
In my opinion, Windows RT just hasn't proved its value. With the exception of the Surface (RT), I can't think of a single RT device that made me think "Oh, I want that!" I do own a Dell XPS10, but It certainly wasn't a value at its original price. I purchased this from craigslist and didn't actually make a move on one until the 64GB model I kept my eye on dropped to $280 (with keyboard). Sadly, it's a buggy affair, as Dell hasn't quite figured out how to implement the dock properly in my opinion. Back on topic, however, while the included Office is a nice touch, the only reason the tablet works for me is my simple needs. I basically need a browser for couch and toilet surfing. My Xbox music pass is a nice touch, though not a selling point on a tablet (my phone is a different story). The app selection is still woefully lacking, but I can't complain too much at $280. I'd be very upset if I'd paid $500-600 for a device with the same restrictions (and no, I won't buy an iPad or Android tablet at that price either). At that price, I'd rather save a little more for a Surface Pro or something along that lines.
Apparently some reports say that Microsoft is charging $90 per tablet to license RT. Consider that most retail "stuff" has a 100% markup to MSRP, and that means in order to compete with the cheaper offerings from Google ($200) and even Apple ($249) they'd have to be able to build the tablet for $10 to $60. You're not gonna get build quality for $60. That's the real reason the Surface tablet exists: nobody else really can make one and be profitable, so Microsoft wanted to show how to make one profitable (go high-end and put everything in it, despite that it cost a bit more than a nice iPad with less features, and rely on the Microsoft name).
If Asus wanted to make Microsoft look bad, they could ship the same tablet, one with Android and one with RT, and just have one be half the price of the other, and see how they flew off shelves.
So I'm forced to conclude that Microsoft is either exceedingly out of touch with what consumers actually want, or they've lost a lot of good will over the years and people are deciding they don't want their products.
For years Microsoft has more or less allowed the hardware makers to keep up with the needs of running their stuff -- but it sounds like they're not willing to foot the bill (and carry the risk) for getting a Microsoft product to market.
Sounds like Windows RT is fast becoming a complete flop.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Secure boot was a disgrace that should not have been allowed. I am getting increasingly concerned that the old duopoly is Apple and Microsoft has no interest in evolving its Desktop machines, Windows replacing their OS with a tablet interface, and Apple is replacing it with a cylinder...and the choice of expensive external hard drives. All in pursuit of those early adopters money in the tablet (mobile) market ironically a market that has been taken from them by Googles Android(67% Market share) faster than the smartphone market; Apples(28% Market Share) "Sold" suddenly means "Shipped" and Millions of Tablets Disappear in Inventory adjustments(Channel stuffing perhaps?) and the margins are vanishing from it even faster; The Microsoft(5% Market Share) Surface price even massively discounted looks overpriced.
The sad fact is I am convinced there is a great machine in there somewhere. I personally would be happy with surface running GNU/Linux with android compatibility...and the Play store. In my opinion apart from an unnecessary low resolution screen which is indefensible in a Nexus 7 1920 x 1200 with 323 pixels per inch (the return) world. Yet they have made such future impossible with their(not your) hardware. I am now waiting for the next generation of touchscreen chromebooks which will also solve the problem of price as Intel and Microsoft gouging their hostages on 70% gross margin, A major factor when you face competition.
As I said Secure Boot is a disgrace. Ironically Asus CEO and chairman Jonney Shih sees the of Android with a keyboard too (If only Asus would add GNU/Linux to Mix) as the future http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000185493&play=1 (Jon Fortt really really likes Apple and should be sacked) even though Asus are selling significant Android tablets including the incredibly popular Nexus 7 (both generations).
FYI Tablet Market figures from here http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/29/apples-ipad-market-share-chopped-in-half-as-android-takes-over/
You're missing my point.
I have three 30" screens I work on. It is wonderful.
I want a device that acts like my trusty pad of paper, but better. I like to be able to read and flip through reference papers leaned back in my chair, or over a coffee. I'm not going to sit down and work in that environment - certainly not to code, design a CAD part, work out a tooling process, design a PCB, figure out a circuit, or even write a long memo. I have a great work setup for those tasks.
Microsoft completely missed the mark and the consumers have spoken. You and some others want to work on a tablet, fine - most don't.
..don't panic
And Android has never claimed that you would be running full Linux on your device. Microsoft's blunder wasn't that they made a tablet OS, it's that they tried to pass it off as their full fledged desktop by giving it the same name when they had already spent 8 years with their desktop software already on tablet computers, and doubled down by simultaneously releasing a looks-and-feels identical version which really did run all of Windows desktop software.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Windows RT's a dog that was never going to fly unless they'd done it 5 years earlier. All the surface stuff is overpriced but why would you buy a computer no one is writing software for? Even the pro version you're still locked in and cant significantly mod the product (Add more memory/storage etc) but at least its got a USB and I bed the BlueTooth works.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Couldn't even RTFS?
This is Slashdot, nobody RTFA. You must be new here.
The main strength of Windows was its ability to maintain an impressive amount of backwards compatibility. A few applications aside, things I bought 10 years ago still work on my Windows 8 x64 machine (without virtualization or emulation). To attack two well entrenched competitors Microsoft went in guns blazing without what is historically been the most compelling feature of Windows. I have an MBA, and even I saw this coming...
There is no purpose to it. It has no advantages over the existing lower power tablets except Office which is something that people who are using those tablets don't care about.
As intel improves the power requirements of their main chips the Surface Pro is where Microsoft should be focusing their efforts. A single device that functions both as a full fledged PC when needed and a tablet when needed is the immediate future. At least I know I don't want to lug around multiple devices.
The original gripe from the OEMs was that MS was producing hardware that competed with them. Now that they've washed their hands of it, MS has a free hand to build whatever they like without OEMs being able to whine about unfair competition or go to regulators to complain.
It's truly brilliant. /. is merely too dense to see it.
They should have stuck to x86 (including x86 tablets) to leverage the huge base of software already written for x86 rather than porting Windows to a new platform with basically no advantages over x86 and a bunch of disadvantages (including the fact that existing software wont work).
FWIW, of course Microsoft (like Apple) has on-line sales...
Of course it's really easy to forget you can buy things online these days, right?
Not that online sales helped at all in this case, but it just illustrates that often math rears its ugly head in straw-man arguments...
Linux netbooks didn't really take off
Except they did every store had more netbooks than anything else, Microsoft heavily discounted XP to compete(11 years old only if your stupid enough to count from launch), and then with Intel limited its specifications and Microsoft limits its OS (and it ran badly) to not cannibalise its more profitable none existent Ultrabook and its existing laptop market. They successfully killed it of...and then Apple launched the iPad which had none of the limits, some advantages...and a killer price (then not now) and obvious the brand.
I like the idea of Windows on other hardware, especially cheap energy efficient hardware like ARM.
I don't understand why MS has both Windows Phone and Windows 8 RT, though. Both ARM-based touch-focused Windows OSs. But software won't run on both. Why? How many ecosystems can you realisitcally expect to create? MS obviously over-estimated their ability or their cache with users.
Creating ecosystems is hard. Even if you have the better product. And MS doesn't have the better product with either RT or Phone.
How was this supposed to work? Even if it sold, was it a "survival of the fittest" OS scenario? Kill RT if Phone did well? Or vice-versa? Eventually there could be just one, right?
Why not have one lightweight 'mobile/touch' OS that can run on ARM and x86; then have 'heavy' x86-only Windows for Surface Pro and Laptop/Desktops? Because it makes too much sense?
Perhaps RT was a play to get some leverage on Intel? Who knows. One thing that's clear is that the market has rejected it.
FUNK!
Remember in the '90s when Windows CE "laptops" that were basically just the equivalent of a Palm Pilot with a giant screen were selling for the same price as laptops? Yes, you could pay $1,000 for a machine with:
"Pocket" Outlook
"Pocket" Office
"Pocket" IE
8 or 16MB of built-in storage, with few, if any, additional storage options
A tiny-ass MIPS CPU
A 640x480 (if you were lucky) passive matrix screen that was barely legible
Of course, none of the applications actually worked—
"Pocket" Outlook couldn't connect to 90% of infrastructure servers
"Pocket" Office was basically just "plain text with bold and italic" and couldn't open any Office documents with even 10% fidelity
"Pocket" IE required that you drop another $200 on a WiFi card and then wouldn't render any modern (post-HTML 3.0) web pages anyway
And all were slow as sin, and there was precious little in the way of additional applications of any kind, because the machines were so underpowered vs. laptops running full Windows, developer support sucked, and there was no market for apps anyway—not to mention that if you did happen to sell an app to a consumer, they had to go through the convoluted process of installing the CD on their PC first, then plugging their CE device into the serial port of their PC and doing an (always unstable and failing in non-transparent ways) "activesync."
And yet Microsoft kept the "Windows" brand on the CE devices and intentionally marketed them as roughly equivalent to a laptop only lighter and with much longer battery life, OMG!
I had more than one acquaintance come to me asking for help with their new "laptop" only to find that the problem was that their new "laptop" was a CE device they'd been duped into buying, and while it was incredibly light (for its time) and had massive battery life (for its time), it couldn't and wasn't meant to, as they'd imagined, actually run all of the software they had on CD on their office shelf.
Decade and a half later, and Microsoft is still playing the same game and has been all of this time, never with any mainstream success.
I've heard people say, "well, gosh, these are corporate devices for vertically integrated workflows, that's the market," but that never explained (nor does it today) how they then end up at big box stores being sold to consumers, and in mass market Microsoft advertising.
Me, I think Microsoft's just kinda dumb.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Anyone that purchased, the grotesquely overpiced Transformer or Transformer Prime models, or experienced ASUS's lack luster support, indecipherable RMI process, on again/off again customer communication strategies or underwhelming, overpromised hardware/software tablet solutions is probably shocked to see this announcement.
The only thing that sucks worse than ASUS as a hardware manufacturer of tablets and OEM distributor/reseller is Microsoft as a tablet desinger/developer who uses ASUS hardware as a platform. It's the rotten olive atop a shit sandwich. Never again will ASUS get my custom...
If they want to make some money and blow away the competition, they should demand that Microsoft sell them unlimited numbers of Windows 7 licenses. Toshiba, Lenovo, and HP are all selling Win 7 pro as a downgrade but only Toshiba (as far as I know) actually got away with buying like a million or so Windows 7 bulk licenses prior to its discontinuation so they're still selling low end models with Windows 7 Home Premium. There's a C850 with a new ivy bridge 2020M for $400 w/Win 7!
I have three 30" screens I work on. It is wonderful.
For what you do it is wonderful. What you do != what everyone else does. For my job I don't actually need that much screen real estate and most of what I do can be done on a single 17" monitor if I really needed to. For many of my clients I do my work on a laptop with a 15" screen and it works just fine thank you very much.
Microsoft completely missed the mark and the consumers have spoken. You and some others want to work on a tablet, fine - most don't.
You are conflating two issues. You are absolutely correct that Microsoft missed the mark with the Surface RT. Had they introduced the Pro for a reasonable price instead of the crippled RT then they might have had something. Tablets and laptops are going to converge over time. There are some technical hurdles to be overcome but the lines between the two are going to blur significantly in the next few years. Apple, Google and Microsoft are all working in this direction.
Where you are wrong is in thinking that Microsoft's failure somehow implies that no one does work on tablets. Plenty of people work on tablets. I have sales people visit my office all the time using tablets for real work. Plus it's no big deal to dock a tablet/laptop if you need better monitor options. Tablets are used in doctors offices and by sales people and by restaurants TODAY. Just because they aren't doing engineering on them doesn't mean it isn't real work. Over time, tablets and laptops will converge significantly much like how cell phones have taken over much of the low end camera market. A tablet is just a laptop with a touch optimized interface. With the right software, many tasks that can be done by laptops could just as easily be done with a tablet.
There's rumors Apple is considering a 13" ipad
If they do that, I'll buy 50 of them on launch day. One to give to every engineer in my department. These things will sell like mad in science en engineering circles.
That was MS's chance at doing something mobile - it was ballsy, but here's what it did: IT SEVERED THE TIE WITH DESKTOP. It threw out the legacy and started over.
3rd party developers were hesitant, because Microsoft had a recent history of vomiting out and then abandoning new tech with heightened frequency; W7P/Metro came out of nowhere and people were kind of low on arms and legs to spend on another MS-tech right then.
So, MS put a spin on it, in the way MS tends to recently, with chain saws. I'd actually just gotten home with "Windows Phone 7 Application Development" and started reading it when I saw the /. "Windows 8 will be based on Metro"-esque announcement.
As a result, I never got past chapter 1 of the book, cause I knew right then, Windows 8 was seriously f**ked up and that my beloved HTC Trophy wasn't going to be getting any more of the amazing pure-metro apps :(
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
That's too bad, I love my Surface RT. It is a great tablet, solid, feels really good in my hands, responsive, and a joy to use.
For fuck's sake will you people stop humping the "tablets are going to replace PCs" inflatable doll?
Tablet sales are going up and PC sales are going down. All three major vendors of tablets (Apple, Google and Microsoft) are actively working on convergence. One of the most popular accessories for a tablet is a keyboard. Exactly what do you think all that implies except that tablets ARE replacing PCs for many uses?
Nobody is claiming tablets are going to make PCs go away entirely. But tablets ARE replacing PCs in a lot of circumstances and will continue to do so.
Which makes it a PC.
So apparently you agree with me - a tablet is a type of PC.
Didn't you read the headline? Anything that begins with RT ends bad.
There's nothing MS can do to make me want to buy Surface RT short of porting Android to it. They may be able to cut their losses and actually sell these things if they could get a useful OS in it. Not that MS would ever do that....
on it was a video running promoting the iPad :-)
Perl Programmer for hire
A lot of you don't seem like Windows developers, and you're on the outside looking in on this issue. You won't learn anything about WinRT's failure by analyzing Microsoft's marketing.
.NET would be shitcanned to appease the C++ fools, and that everyone would have to use disgusting HTML5 and JavaScript to develop mobile apps in the future. Understandably, they fled in large numbers and Microsoft doubled down on its foolishness, doing nothing until Build 2011 to even rectify the issue. Worse yet, even after the fact, WinRT has no real .NET code compatibility with the desktop, so you have to fork your code base and cannot leverage jack shit. This is the real reason you do not and will never see apps for the platform. They should have had Ballmer's HEAD for this.
WinRT became persona non grata in 2011 when Microsoft scared its WPF and Silverlight developers into thinking
Fire Steve Ballmer, its that simple
A lot of you don't seem like Windows developers, and you're on the outside looking in on this issue. You won't learn anything about WinRT's failure by analyzing Microsoft's marketing.
WinRT became persona non grata in 2011 when Microsoft scared its WPF and Silverlight developers into thinking .NET would be shitcanned to appease the C++ fools, and that everyone would have to use disgusting HTML5 and JavaScript to develop mobile apps in the future. Understandably, they fled in large numbers and Microsoft doubled down on its foolishness, doing nothing until Build 2011 to even rectify the issue. Worse yet, even after the fact, WinRT has no real .NET code compatibility with the desktop, so you have to fork your code base and cannot leverage jack shit. This is the real reason you do not and will never see apps for the platform. They should have had Ballmer's HEAD for this.
I submit that this was intentional. The RT was never intended to be a successful platform. It was intended to (a) demonstrate Microsoft playing in the ARM space, and (b) muddy the non-Wintel waters. I fully expect developers declining to develop for RT to be blamed on the ARM platform, not the software stack.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
> Turns out people want things that are the size of a laptop to work as well as a laptop.
The size, *and* the expense of a laptop. Early Netbooks caught a break because they were cheap. The Surface RT was the resources of a netbook (without the ecosystem) at *more than* the price of a low end laptop.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Company doesn't want to make a product that the market doesn't want to buy. The interesting part is that this is, somehow, news.
The thing that strikes me about this is companies willing to even try this in the first place. Just like Intel miscalculated badly when they launched the Itanic, Windows RT seems to have been Microsoft's Itanic. An OS that doesn't run the apps that people think it does. It's as big a fiasco as the Linux Netbooks were.
Forget the public for a moment - what exactly were OEMs thinking? They're in the computer business - don't they have any idea of which CPUs are x86 compatible and which ones ain't? In the 90s and 2000s, far more superior CPUs to ARM, such as the Alpha & MIPS were abandoned as far as being Windows platforms went, despite their superiority over contemporary Pentiums. Reason - lack of native software. There isn't much more ARM software than there was RISC NT software, so why would anyone have thought it would work? A number of small companies tried making Windows NT workstations w/ Alphas or MIPS - Carrera, Aspen, DeskStation, Microway, NeTpower and so on. All of them either abandoned their platforms, or switched to Intel.
In case of ARM, let's say company Acme Microsystems came up w/ a computer that was based on an ARM from one of the myriad ARM licensees. What exactly does that thing run that's not available on Wintel? For tablets, there is a case, since both Apple & Google have managed to create unique platforms that have been so popular w/ developers that they have a whole slew of applications unique to them. That's not been the case w/ Microsoft on either tablets or phones - so far.
Microsoft would have done well to have taken the latest advances by Intel or AMD in terms of power saving CPUs, and based their platforms - Windows RT, Windows Phone, on those. That way, they'd at least have had a chance of running legacy PC apps, while waiting for native Windows 8 apps for the platforms.
At least, the chicken would have been there first.
Well, even funnier is that is now biting them in the ass from the opposite direction. When a consumer looks at (3) tablets from Apple / Android / Microsoft, they're going to want to know if it runs hip-application-XYZ.
Which, odds are high, that app is only available on iOS and/or Android.
Used to be that you bought Windows because that was what the application (that you desired) ran on. It fails to translate to the mobile world because of Microsoft's numerous missteps over the last decade. Every time MS would refresh the platform (WinCE had multiple versions, same with Windows Mobile), you had to buy all new software because your old software wouldn't run.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?