Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft is believed to be discounting Windows RT tablet OS licenses in an attempt to stimulate interest in the Windows-on-ARM platform. Windows RT had been Microsoft’s strategy to directly take on the iPad and Android tablets with more affordable chipsets from Qualcomm and others, but lackluster app compatibility left OEMs hesitant. Now, Bloomberg‘s sources claim, Microsoft is relying on good old fashioned discounting to drive interest.

Exact figures on exactly how much Microsoft is offering to reduce Windows RT licensing fees for are unclear, and neither has the company revealed its original pricing. The promotion is said to be around “Windows RT for small-sized tablets”, which may or may not include roughly 10-inch versions like Microsoft’s own Surface.

It sounds like a solid strategy, given the feedback from manufacturers around Windows RT over the past months. Some companies have outright panned the platform, such as Acer, which earlier today dismissed Windows RT as not influential. Others, however, have been more taciturn in their failing confidence, marginalizing products that had been on the roadmap.

HTC, for instance, was said recently to have axed plans to release a 12-inch Windows RT tablet, though it’s possible the slate may not have qualified for Microsoft’s “small” criteria as part of a discount scheme. At the time, sources suggested HTC lacked confidence that the market demand for Windows RT hardware was sufficient to make releasing the slate worthwhile; it also took issue with Microsoft’s expensive licensing.

However, HTC is still believed to have a roughly 7-inch Windows RT tablet – as well as an Android-based counterpart – in the wings, for release sometime later this year.

ASUS and Toshiba are yet to bring a Windows RT model to market, and Dell recently slashed the price of its model, the XPS 10, by around a third. A Dell spokesperson blamed underwhelming interest on poor awareness of RT’s strengths, rather than a shortcoming in the platform itself.

“We’ve found that customers using it are really, really happy,” Dell tablet VP Neil Hand told Bloomberg. “There just aren’t enough of them knowing what it is, and why they should use it.”

In the meantime, Intel has pushed its own Atom chips to achieve new, lower power consumption without necessarily sacrificing power. The Clover Trail+ series has already shown up today in new tablet models from Samsung and ASUS, and it’s possible that some of the ARM advantages Windows RT took advantage of may be peeling away as x86 architecture catches up.

Microsoft said it will announce more news about Windows RT and its strategy for the platform at BUILD late this month.

Microsoft slashing Windows RT licensing to rescue interest tip sources is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft is poised to announce a significant shake-up across its business, with CEO Steve Ballmer tipped to rework the organization into the “devices and services company” he discussed as part of his “fundamental shift” shareholder letter in 2012. A wholesale reworking of how Microsoft is arranged is in the pipeline, AllThingsD‘s sources claim, including pushing several of its executives further into the public spotlight as the company capitalizes on its investments in entertainment, communications, and more.

Three executives are name-checked in particular: Servers and Tools division president Satya Nadella; Skype commis division president Tony Bates; and Interactive Entertainment division president Don Mattrick. However, they’re unlikely to be the only top-brass at Microsoft who will find themselves with more tasks on their respective plates.

Written last October, Ballmer’s letter to shareholders was seen at the time as a heavy-handed hint that more own-brand hardware was in the pipeline. Microsoft had not long revealed the Surface tablet, though the Windows 8 and Windows RT versions of the slate had yet to go on sale.

“Last year in this letter I said that over time, the full value of our software will be seen and felt in how people use devices and services at work and in their personal lives” Ballmer wrote. “This is a significant shift, both in what we do and how we see ourselves – as a devices and services company.”

“There will be times when we build specific devices for specific purposes,” Ballmer concluded, “as we have chosen to do with Xbox and the recently announced Microsoft Surface.”

That push for more own-brand hardware has already seen another high-profile device, with the Xbox One unveiled a few weeks ago. However, the exact way in which Microsoft might restructure itself is unknown.

One possibility is a simplification of the by-now convoluted management levels and business units, to take into greater account the modern interplay of software, hardware, and the cloud. Microsoft currently has five key divisions – the Windows Division, Server and Tools, Online Services Division, Microsoft Business Division, and Entertainment and Devices Division – which it could remix so as to echo the way platforms like Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox LIVE have become more interconnected with the cloud.

Exactly when the change might happen is unclear, and Microsoft has declined to comment on the rumors.

Microsoft re-org rumored as Ballmer considers division shake-up is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

US Cellular’s been promising a WP8 handset for quite some time now, and it looks like the company’s about to deliver exactly that. As you might recall, US Cellular’s last Windows Phone offering was the entry-level ZTE Render which ran WP7.5 (Tango). We recently obtained promo materials for an ATIV Odyssey with US Cellular branding. This mid-range Samsung device, which is currently available on Verizon, packs a 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage (with microSD expansion), LTE and NFC support, plus a five-megapixel autofocus camera with flash. While none of this is official (yet), we fully expect US Cellular to make a proper announcement real soon now. Until then, check out the gallery below for some of the aforementioned promo material.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, Microsoft

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An image supposedly showing the front panel of the next full-sized iPad has emerged, lending weight to rumors that Apple will continue with the thinner bezels of the iPad mini. The front glass and button section shared by Apple.pro is obviously not confirmed as an official part, but would at least fit in with speculation that the fifth-gen iOS tablet’s side bezels will be trimmed dramatically.

That’s an aesthetic decision Apple made with the iPad mini so that the tablet could be held in a single hand, the company said last year at the smaller slate’s launch. It also required some software tweaking to accommodate; Apple built in thumb-rejection technology which meant that the user could overlap the touchscreen slightly with their thumb while holding the iPad mini, without necessarily triggering any buttons.

The leaked part also shows narrower top and bottom bezels, which would suggest an altogether smaller iPad 5, despite the screen presumably being the same 9.7-inch size. Vietnamese site Tinhte briefly showed what was purportedly a case for the new iPad, though the video was subsequently made private.

However, photos of the case – compared with the existing fourth-gen iPad – do indicate a less bulky tablet overall, assuming it’s legitimate. Both Tinhte and Apple.pro have a reasonably good track record for leaked parts ahead of Apple announcements.

Apple is believed to be readying a new full-sized iPad for reveal later this year, alongside a new version of the iPad mini which will add a Retina display to the smaller tablet. However, a third update to the iPad mini is also tipped for early in 2014, which is said to introduce a new processor among other things.

In the meantime, there’s iOS 7 to look forward to, with a preview of the platform widely expected for Apple’s WWDC 2013 opening keynote next month. However, any new hardware at the event is likely to be limited to updated MacBooks, rather than new iPad models.

VIA: 9to5Mac; AppleInsider

iPad 5 panel leak tips iPad mini-style slim bezels is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

HTC has reportedly axed plans to launch a 12-inch tablet running Windows RT, sources claim, after deciding demand for the slate would be insufficient, though a smaller version is still said to be on the roadmap. The unnamed 12-inch tablet was sidelined over fears that it would be too expensive, Bloomberg reports, with the components required adding up to too great a bill-of-materials to allow a competitive street price.

Meanwhile, the underlying consumer interest in Windows RT has also spooked HTC, the sources familiar with the company’s tablet plans suggests. Microsoft is yet to release sales figures for machines running the platform – which modifies Windows 8 to work on ARM-based processors, rather than the x86 chips more commonly associated with the OS – though figures from IDC suggest less than a quarter of a million were sold in Q1 this year.

HTC seemingly has some lingering interest in Windows RT, however, since it is believed to have a smaller slate running the OS in the pipeline. The 7-inch tablet isn’t due until later in 2013, and will run RT on a chipset from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon stable, just as the 12-inch variant was supposedly going to.

The company will hedge its bets, however, by also offering an Android tablet at roughly the same time as the RT variant. Also expected to be 7-inches in size, the second slate will echo HTC’s split in smartphones, with part of its range running Android while the rest uses Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform.

Even if Windows RT’s lackluster success wasn’t sufficient to sink the large tablet plan, research into the appeal of different form-factor sizes indicates HTC is right to leave the 12-inch segment alone. According to recent predictions, even by 2017 11-inch or above models are only expected to comprise around 6-percent of total tablet sales.

Tablets aren’t the only bigger-screen push HTC is believed to be planning. The company is also tipped to be working on a “phablet”, larger than the HTC One, and potentially headed to Verizon.

HTC reportedly scraps 12″ Windows RT tablet plans (but 7″ still on the way) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.