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Surface is alone: Microsoft says no new Windows RT devices coming this Spring

posted on Feb 5th 2013 at 9:56am by Joe Fedewa

Windows RT devices haven’t been as popular as Microsoft had hoped. Microsoft Surface is basically the only Surface RT device on the market right now, and projected sales numbers aren’t very good. Whether it’s price or competition with Surface, for whatever reason OEMs just aren’t using Windows RT. Don’t expect that to change any time soon. Microsoft CFO Tami Reller has stated that no new Windows RT tablet will be coming out this Spring.

The reasoning may not be OEM’s fault. Reller indicated that Microsoft wants to use this time to push the current Windows RT devices (currently four in the US) to sell more units. We have to wonder what will to the future of Windows RT if Microsoft can’t sell more units by Summer. We have predicted several times on this site that Windows RT will eventually die, and this is making our argument look good. If no one buys Windows RT devices there is no incentive for OEMs to use it over Windows 8 Pro. Having a low power version of Windows was a good idea, but it just isn’t cheap enough, and it’s confusing to consumers.

Will Windows RT ever pan out?

[via Neowin]

  • http://WinSource.com/ J. Drummond

    I bet that sometime this year, another OEM comes out with a full Windows 8 tablet for a good $100-200 cheaper than than the Surface Pro. Right now, the pricing very much reminds me of how ludicrous Apple’s gadgets seem to me, though an iPad 4 doesn’t run full OSX, of course.

  • http://www.colossaldamage.com/ SuperMarino

    The RT shouldn’t have existed, it really just confused the Windows 8 market. I mean, it’s a nice piece of equipment, but when you release something and say “a better version is coming out in months that can do all this and more!” you kinda shoot yourself in the foot. If they can just work on improving battery life in the Pro (which will happen over the next few generations), any desire for the RT will fade away.

  • Avatar Roku

    There have been 5 Windows RT devices released thus far:

    Asus VivoTab RT

    Dell XPS 10

    Lenovo Yoga 11

    Microsoft Surface

    Samaung Ativ Tab

  • Avatar Roku

    The Pro version will not sell as well as the RT version. MS isn’t even mass producing the Pro. The thing costs $1000 and it’s February, not the holidays or even back to school. From day one it was decided that Surface Pro would be deemphasized and sent to die to appease the OEMs. It could be a modest surprise hit, but a tablet at $1000 is not going to be flying off the shelves.

  • Edgar Cervantes

    Competing in the tablet market right now is not easy. At first, I was excited because of the idea of having a full computer on a tablet. This is why I never liked the RT idea, but I thought it could work out if it was priced right… it wasn’t. If they could keep Windows 8 Pro and lower the prices it would be a winner.

  • http://twitter.com/Sieversd Dan Sievers

    Surface RT is actually quite a good little machine. I use it 70% as a tablet and 30% as a PC for work. I wish the standards apps (specifically the Mail client) were much better, but otherwise I give it pretty high marks (I hardly use my iPad 1 anymore). The main reason for producing a version of Windows that runs on ARM was that this allows for very long battery life. I have found that getting 10 hours of battery life out of a Windows-ish PC is pretty great. It is too bad that Microsoft has so confused the marketing of these operating systems (8 vs. RT), limited the distribution of Surface RT at launch, and has neglected the basic “out of the box” apps so much, as these really define the experience.