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Shelving what it described as an "aggressive" product schedule, Acer is delaying the launch of its Windows RT offerings until Q2 of 2013. This news comes for Acer President Jim Wong who cites Microsoft's Surface tablet as the reason, in this interview conducted by Reuters. "Because of Surface... we are much more cautious," claims Wong.
Acer made clear its thoughts on Surface this summer when the company said Redmond's foray into tabletdom would hurt the industry. The company said it may even consider looking for alternative partners. Acer having to delay its Windows RT line-up is likely to increase this divide.
Surface was released just days ago to relatively mixed reviews, but certainly not without ample amounts of praise for its sleek and solid construction, responsiveness, no-cost Office RT bundle and its clever but effective keyboard cover. Although Surface may have missed its chance to hit the $299 and even $199 price mark, it seems apparent Microsoft still has a solid product on their hands.
Wong said Acer is waiting to see how Surface does -- how well received it is by customers and how aggressive Microsoft will be in pushing Surface. He noted that Asus and Lenovo had already developed plans for $599 Windows 8 RT tablets well before Microsoft made the unilateral decision to release its own product for a hundred bucks less. Microsoft, of course, doesn't have to pay license costs for Office and Windows 8 RT, giving it a marked advantage over now-rival OEMs -- and giving OEMs like Acer pause before jumping in head first into the Windows 8 RT tablet market.
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Apple iPad 2
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User Comments: 6
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IE, they might actually be forced to make a good product
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Because of poor quality, acer will be releasing SUBSURFACE next year.
if third-party manufacturers are good enought to release real ipad killers rather than making dubious claims, surface rt and surface pro will not have surfaced.
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ACER netbooks, laptops, desktops are very good. Tablet another story. Give them a couple of units to be built first until they get it right. Like the first Android Tablet wasn't that great. Taken them a few of them to get that working right. MS Surface will be the tablet I'll be using. I was using Skytex Skytab with Windows 7 then Windows 8 Preview. The only drawback is the limited RAM onboard is only 2GB that's the max because of the Atom Dual Core 64-bit used also has 320GB HDD. Other than that the system is pretty quick running Windows 7 Ulimitate 64-bit. Windows 8 was snappy..
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treeski said:
If the Windows licensing fee is a noticeable advantage for Microsoft, then Microsoft should license it to OEMs for free (at least the RT version), considering MS will be making profit from the Windows Store app sales anyway...
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It seems to me that the garbage companies such as HP and Acer pump out are one the biggest reasons why apple does so well . . .
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@treeski
That is a very idea IMO, one which IF MS does it, will probably help it in achieving its long term goals.
On Acer, their products always seems to have that 'cheap' feel to them, but that is my personal opinion.
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