Microsoft hopes to sell 'a few million' Windows 8 Surface tablets in 2013

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Home › Microsoft hopes to sell 'a few million' Windows 8 Surface tablets in 2013

by Ron on July 09, 2012 - 04:04pm

During the Worldwide Partner Conference keynote, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated that the company was hoping to sell a "few million Surface PCs" in the coming year. Ballmer also believes that there will be 375 million Windows PCs sold in the next 12 months.

According to the report, Steve Ballmer believes that Microsoft will sell a few million Windows 8 Surface tablets in 2013. By stating this during a keynote, it clearly showcases how Microsoft is planning a big push for the Surface tablet. Ballmer also has high hopes for the Windows platform in terms of sales. "Ballmer also said that according to estimates, there will be 375 million Windows PCs sold in the next 12 months. His implication was there would still be lots of OEMs making Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows RT (Windows on ARM) machines, too," the report states. With Microsoft's recent purchase of large-screen multi-touch display vendor Perceptive Pixel, will we be seeing a large push towards this product and will Ballmer's estimates be right?

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Will Windows RT tablets cost around $700 and still compete with Apple's iPad?

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Home › Will Windows RT tablets cost around $700 and still compete with Apple's iPad?

by Sarvesh on June 05, 2012 - 06:39pm

Microsoft is fancying their chances of leading the Tablet market with Windows RT. According to an IDC analyst Tom Mainelli, Windows RT tablets are likely to cost around $500 - $700. This is a major setback for those who were planning to buy cheap Windows RT based tablet.

"My biggest concern is that Windows RT tablets could be many times more expensive than the Amazon Fire price of $200 -- even something as high as $599 and above, which is a concern for their viability," IDC analyst Tom Mainelli stated.

With the availability of many cheap tablets in the market, such as Kindle Fire and many other Android based tablets, Windows RT tablets will have to face a major challenge in establishing themselves in the market. Microsoft needs to re-evaluate the price if the company wants to face a direct competition with the iPad since the iPad starts at $499. To lead the tablet market, Microsoft will have to end the dominance of iPads which can be done either by keeping the prices low or by providing compelling features. On one hand, Windows RT tablets will include Office 15 productivity apps at no extra cost whereas on the other hand Windows RT will not run the legacy desktop apps, so you are kind of restricted to the Metro interface.

A lot of hardware vendors have stepped up and have taken Windows RT as another opportunity to rule the tablet market which has resulted in some breath taking tablets. At the Computex we saw a lot of those such as ASUS Windows RT Tablet 600 which is powered by NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad core mobile processor.

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Computex 2012: Over 20 Intel Clover Trail Windows 8 RT tablets in the works

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Home › Computex 2012: Over 20 Intel Clover Trail Windows 8 RT tablets in the works

by Ron on June 05, 2012 - 08:52am

During Computex 2012, Intel stated that there were over twenty Intel CPU powered Windows 8 RT tablets in the works. This comes as good news, because apparently at Computex, very few ARM-based devices were shown. Most of the tablets shown were running x86 processors.

Based on what Intel is saying, expect to see over twenty Intel Clover Trail based Windows RT tablets in the near future. During Computex 2012, we got to see a glimpse at several Windows 8 tablets, but they were all powered by chips other than ARM. We recently saw a video of an ASUS Windows RT Tablet 600, a Tegra 3 powered Windows RT tablet, which not only gives us hope that this platform seems promising, but also re-iterates that unless companies like Asus and Acer start pushing for more ARM based tablets, the platform will go nowhere.

Take a look below at some of the non-ARM based tablets showcased at Computex 2012, which featured Windows 8 as the operating system:

Acer Iconia W700
ASUS Tablet 810
Lenovo ThinkPad Windows 8 tablet
Samsung Series 7 Hybrid

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