In what is unquestionably a blow to Microsoft's mobile device dreams, Samsung has announced that it is halting plans to release its Windows RT ATIV tablets in the United States.
Samsung cited a couple of reasons for the decision, such as the high cost needed to educate consumers on the differences between Windows 8 and Windows RT. The company also pointed to studies and feedback it received from retailers indicating that demand for the tablet was tepid.
"There wasn't really a very clear positioning of what Windows RT meant in the marketplace, what it stood for relative to Windows 8, that was being done in an effective manner to the consumer," said Mike Abary, Samsung's senior vice president, toCNET. "When we did some tests and studies on how we could go to market with a Windows RT device, we determined there was a lot of heavy lifting we still needed to do to educate the customer on what Windows RT was."
When the South Korean company realized how much effort and money would be needed to educate customers, it decided it wasn't worth the cost.
"That heavy lifting was going to require pretty heavy investment," said Abary. "When we added those two things up, the investments necessary to educate the consumer on the difference between RT and Windows 8, plus the modest feedback that we got regarding how successful could this be at retail from our retail partners, we decided maybe we ought to wait."
Microsoft has had issues explaining the differences between Windows 8 and Windows RT ever since it originally revealed the product last year.
Although cost and lack of demand were the primary factors, the fact that Samsung couldn't get the price of the tablets down to the level it wanted, surely played a role in the decision, too. It was quick to note that this wasn't a problem Microsoft was responsible for, but rather an issue it had building the product.
Samsung isn't, however, completely closing the door on a Windows RT tablet. The company said that after it sees how the market develops, releasing one is an idea it will revisit.
