Intel Corp (INTC)

[Ideal_Inv]

Without legacy (and potential for a lot of new apps), there was no reason to go into a constrained OS like RT

iOS is a constrained version of OSx and that seems to have done just fine. Customers dont expect full pc versions of operating systems on their mobile devices..the use cases are completely different.

The difference is - there are/were no full MacOS version tablets available.
If there had been a choice between iOS and MacOS tablets, who knows what customers would have picked? I would think that a lot of them would have gone for the whole enchilada.

In the case of Windows, you had RT Tablets (a constrained version) and full Windows Tablets. And there was no big price differential. Customers overwhelmingly voted for full Windows Tablets relative to Windows RT Tablets. As I read somewhere, don't question reality.


MS mistake was positioning their surface tablets vs the iPad. Include a full version of MS Office on a streamlined "Windows lite"..price it below $350..and they could have owned that segment.

You seem to be re-writing history. It does not matter what MS itself did or could have done. OEMs did not support RT because it offered no advantages. That was the death knell.

MS tried to flog a dead horse with Surface RT, and to their "amazement", found that the customers were too smart to fall for it.

Further, there was no price differential between RT and full Windows on x86. There was no need to buy RT, period.

Where customers wanted to go with Windows, they went with full Windows Tablets for $299 or less, sometimes bundled with MSOffice (full home/student) or Office 365. Asus Transformers (detachable 2-in-1s) sold in the mid $300 range with full MSOffice home/student license...why would anyone buy RT for $350?!?

IMO, the only leverage MS has is full Windows with MS Office (and other legacy apps).

MS better use this leverage sensibly in the PC market till it is there. If they arm-twist the customer too much, people will increasingly adopt Libre Office, etc. or move over to Chrome - and that will be the beginning-of-the-end for MS in the consumer space!