Win RT OEM Ecosystem Tightly Controlled
It must be no fun being a Win RT OEM. You now have the company that controls the OS competing with you with Microsoft Surface. Given that fact, you'd think Microsoft would cut you a little slack. But no. Instead, Microsoft controls your every move.
Here's one example: ARM is the company that makes the processor that drives Win RT devices. But these processors become part of a system-on-a-chip (SoC), which is made by Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and NVIDIA. The OEM, which makes the final machines, tablets or tablet/laptop hybrids, are under Microsoft orders to only work with one SoC provider. I'm not sure why this is the case but it sure makes it tough to negotiate price. The same is true on the Win 8 side -- you've got to choose your Intel or AMD poison (and can't flip flop).
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/22/2012 at 4:59 PM