Microsoft this week admitted that its upcoming Surface tablet might hurt its relationships with PC maker partners.
As first noted by the New York Times, Redmond said in a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that "our Surface devices will compete with products made by our OEM partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform."
Microsoft unveiled the Surface tablet in late June during a secretive, last-minute Los Angeles press conference. At the time, a major question was whether Microsoft's usual partners, who had all pledged to develop Windows 8 tablets and PCs, had any idea that the Surface was in the pipeline. According to a report from Reuters, Redmond only gave companies like Acer, Asus, Dell, and others a three-day heads up before taking the wraps off its Surface tablet.
A week later, Hewlett-Packard tabled plans for a consumer-targeted Windows RT tablet powered by a Qualcomm-designed ARM processor and instead said it would focus on a business slate using the x86-optimized version of Windows 8, though it did not specifically cite the Surface as the reason for the switch.
Other partners have been largely mum on the Surface, though Acer founder Stan Shih told Digitimes that Surface is simply a way to boost adoption of Windows 8 and will disappear after the first iteration. RIM said that Microsoft's Surface tablet won't change its strategy.
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer said recently that he expects to sell a "few million" Surfaces.
In its filing, Microsoft noted the increasing pressure that tablets and smartphones have placed on the PC market.
"The proliferation of alternative devices and form factors, in particular mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, creates challenges from competing software platforms," Microsoft wrote. "These devices compete on multiple bases including price and the perceived utility of the device and its platform. Users may increasingly turn to these devices to perform functions that would have been performed by personal computers in the past."
As a result, it might be difficult to attract app developers to the Windows platform, Microsoft said.
A dubious $1,000 online listing aside, Microsoft has not yet revealed pricing for the Surface tablet. The device will be released after Windows 8 becomes generally available on Oct. 26.
For more, see PCMag's Hands On With Microsoft's Surface Tablet and the slideshow below. Also check out Microsoft Skims the Surface.
For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.
No comments:
Post a Comment