Microsoft faces lonely road with Surface RT tablets

Does anybody know if said companies are just replacing Windows RT with Android and rebadging the devices? Obviously Microsoft can't do that but it may be a way to sell already produced stock for some manufacturers. I'm not sure its even possible but its interesting to think about.

alphanumeric said:

Does anybody know if said companies are just replacing Windows RT with Android and rebadging the devices? Obviously Microsoft can't do that but it may be a way to sell already produced stock for some manufacturers. I'm not sure its even possible but its interesting to think about.

Click to expand...

LOL..Interesting hypothesis! No need to waste perfectly good hardware right?

alphanumeric said:

Does anybody know if said companies are just replacing Windows RT with Android and rebadging the devices? Obviously Microsoft can't do that but it may be a way to sell already produced stock for some manufacturers. I'm not sure its even possible but its interesting to think about.

Click to expand...

Um... this would be a nightmare from a software perspective. If they try to put android into these devices that were built for rt, the software would be buggy as hell. Driver support alone would be one of those end-of-the-world scenarios we often see on the sci-fi channel.

Superfly said:

alphanumeric said:

Does anybody know if said companies are just replacing Windows RT with Android and rebadging the devices? Obviously Microsoft can't do that but it may be a way to sell already produced stock for some manufacturers. I'm not sure its even possible but its interesting to think about.

Click to expand...

LOL..Interesting hypothesis! No need to waste perfectly good hardware right?

Click to expand...

I do believe they use the same CPU/APU's that they use in the Android tablets. That's what made me wonder if it might be doable. A lot of the other hardware may be very similar too.

Hi there
Had these things been designed by using a "Meta Compiler" then you could use just about ANY OS you cared to name and the meta compiler would produce the microcode the device needs to run the application -- and it would be platform independent itself.

For instance SAP have a developer language called ABAP and applications developed using this language can run on just about any conceivable piece of hardware without the developers having to change the source code at all -- whether it's Windows NT, IBM main frames or whatever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABAP

Cheers
jimbo

I still fail to see why MS is held to a different standard than everyone else. I think Microsoft completely mishandled Windows RT and Surface RT, but I don't see why MS is the only company not allowed to make a tablet without full PC capabilities. Yes, the main draw of a Microsoft-based tablet is you don't lose certain functionality when moving away from a PC, but if people want a tablet thats a laptop replacement they should get one with Windows 8 on it. They should be allowed to make a tablet that's only a couple steps above useless for people other than those who just want something to play with, like the iPad and most Android and then a separate tablet for people who want to be able to do almost everything they can do on their desktop or laptop.

I do think Microsoft botched RT. Some of it was their own mistakes and some of it was unfair expectations. Initially I figured there would be just one Surface just like there is just one iPad, but now it should be obvious to anyone why two flavors make sense, one the players and one for workers. They botched it by trying to come close to people's expectations. They wanted to do too much with RT. Maybe they never should have developed RT. Maybe they should have had Windows 8 tablet, then for their budget tablet followed the Apple and Google models of putting their phone OS on the tablet. As for Surface itself, I think Microsoft made the mistake of coming out with them too early. They should have just let others come out with Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets and then brought out the Surface. But all in all, all the doom and gloom is unnecessary. All the problems with Surface are fixable, and it's something MS can turn around by more clearly defining what RT devices do and separating them from full Windows devices.

What different standard..? RT has been an epic fail...even they admitted it! I appreciate your optimism but if they want to compete in an established market, they should have done their homework a bit better...