Skip to footer

Microsoft days away from revealing its own Windows RT tablet: report

According to one report, Microsoft is very close to releasing a Windows RT tablet. But does Microsoft stand a chance against Apple? 

|
Reuters
A Windows 8 tablet is reportedly on the way. Here, a man takes a pictures of a Windows 8 display at a computer show in Taiwan.
  • By Matthew Shaer

According to a recent report from industry analysts IDC, Apple has a chokehold on the tablet market – one that is unlikely to loosen anytime soon. Still, that hasn't stopped challengers such as Samsung and Motorola from trying. The latest contender? Microsoft, which could be days away from unveiling a tablet running Windows RT, a mobile-centric version of the forthcoming Windows 8 operating system. 

Tech site TheWrap.com says Microsoft has planned a "secretive event" for Monday, where it will introduce an iPad rival. Details remain vague, and Microsoft has remained mum on the rumors. Still, Microsoft has been careful to stress the mobile capabilities of its new operating system, and it makes sense the company would want to introduce its own in-house tablet. 

Of course, as Matt Hamblen of Computerworld notes, this wouldn't exactly be the first Microsoft tablet. The Redmond, Wash.-based company has released slates built by HP and Samsung and powered by older Microsoft operating systems. And yet Windows 8 RT is another beast entirely – an operating system optimized for mobile devices and touchscreen use. So would a Microsoft tablet running RT be a match for Apple? 

Well, maybe. Microsoft certainly has the experience and the smarts and the marketing might. But over at PC World, Ian Paul points to a couple recent high-power Microsoft hardware flops: The Zune music player, which was meant to compete with the iPod, and the Kin, a feature-heavy smartphone targeted at younger users. (The Kin crashed and burned pretty spectacularly.) To be fair, Xbox worked out well. 

"Apple is definitely lacking a strong challenger since Android tablets have largely failed to challenge the iPad," Paul writes. "Windows 8 tablets may be the answer since they offer a different experience than Apple's tablet. But given Microsoft's spotty history with making popular hardware, the software maker might be better off to leave the tablet making to its partners." 

Do you agree? Drop us a line in the comments section. And for more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Microsoft days away from revealing its own Windows RT tablet: report
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Horizons/2012/0615/Microsoft-days-away-from-revealing-its-own-Windows-RT-tablet-report
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe