Lenovo‘s higher priced Windows 8 Pro Tablet may sell, but Windows RT seems to have the fate of Windows ME
Lenovo has now introduced the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 running Windows 8 Pro and as noted in the video review, although it has some nice features and accessories, Lenovo’s latest tablet is not exactly your most economical of tablets.
When Lenovo took over IBM’s PC division, they maintained IBM’s enterprise-centric custoemer strategy and maintained IBM’s relatively higher priced PC costs. Lenovo did manage to turn IBM’s crumbling PC division from a failure into a success though, and even in this struggling PC era that’s waging its death against the latests tablet invasion, Lenovo was actually only one of the top PC companies that actually increased sales in 2012 according the Gartner report.
The first Android based Lenovo ThinkPad tablet that came out last year wasn’t all that popular, their second wave of tablets in the market did much better for them though. According to Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo‘s IdeaPad and ThinkPad lines saw “almost 80 percent year-to-year growth” last year, with more than 800,000 tablets shipped by Lenovo which accounted for $9.4 billion in revenue ($205 million in profit) for Q3 of 2012 alone. Not an Apple-ish astounding profit margin by any means, but certainly a better than negative beginning tablet induction.
Lenovo appears to be betting that Windows 8 Pro will be successful, and they perhaps have a good reason for jumping on board the Windows 8 tablet movement. We recently did an article on how the enterprise is actually Microsoft’s greatest hope when it comes to the success of Windows 8 sales (see related links below) and it appears Lenovo has the same vision, considering their focus market seems to the corporate customer as well.
Windows RT doesn’t seem to be getting the same hopeful expectations as does Windows 8 though. The world’s reception of Windows RT hasn’t been one that has been very welcomed. With the ability of Windows RT to run only apps from the Windows Store (which has practically nothing for it in comparison to Android and Apple), the limited Windows RT tablet OS seems to be much along the lines of success of Windows ME (if you can recall that far back).
Here’s a short reminder of just how good Windows ME was:
There you have it. That was the typical Windows ME user experience.
Although Windows RT tablets may not crash as often, they certainly are about as popular in the tablet community as Windows ME was among desktop users. People are trying to avoid it now at all cost.
In fact, according to Bloomberg, “new devices that run on Windows RT, a variant of the operating system that runs on chips with technology from ARM Holdings Plc (ARM), won’t be released this spring. Microsoft is still focused on getting the five announced in October into stores in large numbers. One partner, Samsung Electronics Co., has opted not to sell its Windows RT tablet in the U.S.
In a nutshell, don’t expect to see too many new RT devices in 2013, not from the Microsoft at least, the makers of it. You can probably expect a flurry of full fledged Windows 8 devices from a number of vendors such as Lenovo though.
Daily Flux Related Links:
* Windows 8: Microsoft May Soon Cash In On The Expiry Of Old OS Support
* The Road For The Microsoft Surface Pro Begins: The Bad News, The Good News & The Great News
Other Related Links: