Bloomberg’s reporting that Samsung is working to have a tablet running Microsoft’s “lite” version of Windows 8, Windows RT, ready for launch this October along side the operating system’s official launch. This is good news for Microsoft, as not a lot of company’s have shown interests due to the high license fees, $85 PER UNIT, to use the Windows RT OS, even Hewlett-Packard (HP) said they’ll pass on making RT tablet in favor of the full blown Windows 8 tablets that run on x86 chips, at least for a while. The RT—or RunTime—version of the Windows 8 OS runs on ARM technology, using processors from Qualcomm, like their Snapdragon series.
Samsung will also have to compete with Microsoft’s own Surface tablet, when they decide to launch their tablet, and because of the unusually high licensing fee, it could prevent Samsung from selling their device at a lower price point than Microsoft, unless they’re willing to take a loss to gain some type of foothold as the premier Windows RT tablet manufacturer. With HP passing and HTC denied the opportunity to make a Windows RT tablet, Samsung could simply win that position by default. Android, because it’s open source and free, is popular among cheaper and smaller companies, hence why we see so many cheap tablets at places like Walgreens and K-Mart. Because Microsoft slapped that high fee on Windows RT, chances are we’re not going to see companies like Archos breaking out 3 and 4 different models.
In any event, it should be interesting to see what Samsung does with Windows RT, especially the price point.
Via: WP-Life