Acer delays Windows RT tablets after Microsoft moves into market
(Reuters) - Taiwanese computer maker Acer is putting off the launch of tablets using Microsoft's new Windows RT operating system to give itself time to see how Microsoft's own Surface tablet fares.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Windows 8 launch cycle was supposed to be Acer's iPad counterattack: back in June 2012, Acer and Toshiba laid out plans for Windows 8 tablets, while Samsung was reported to be targeting an October debut for a Windows RT device (Samsung's planned RT tablet). Hewlett-Packard had already opted out of the ARM side of the launch entirely, sticking with Intel for its Windows 8 debut.
What changed is that Microsoft is no longer just supplying the OS — its own Surface tablet puts the company in direct competition with the partners it needs to make Windows RT viable. Acer's delay, picked up widely across Engadget, CNET, TechCrunch, ZDNet and others, is the first visible sign of a partner hedging rather than committing inventory to a market where the platform owner is also a rival.
First-order effects
- Acer enters the critical holiday quarter without a Windows RT tablet on shelves, ceding the ARM-based Windows tablet segment to Microsoft's Surface and whatever rivals like Samsung still ship.
- Microsoft's Surface launch now carries a double burden: proving consumer demand for RT while reassuring OEMs that Redmond won't crowd them out of their own channel.
Second-order effects
- Other RT-committed OEMs face the same calculus Acer just acted on — Samsung's October RT introduction now launches into a market where the platform owner sets both the software and the reference hardware.
- HP's earlier decision to skip ARM at the Windows 8 debut looks prescient rather than cautious, raising the odds that remaining partners concentrate their Windows 8 investment on x86 machines — Sinofsky's $279 full-Windows laptops give them a price story RT can't easily match.
Third-order effects
- If Surface sales disappoint or partner confidence keeps eroding, Windows RT risks becoming a platform with one committed vendor — Microsoft itself — hollowing out the ecosystem an OS needs to survive.
- The episode hardens a structural question for the PC industry: when an OS vendor ships first-party hardware, partners rationally delay and de-invest, shifting the Windows ecosystem toward fewer, more cautious hardware entrants.
The trend: Platform owners moving into first-party hardware are forcing PC makers to hedge on which version of the operating system they back, with Windows RT as the first casualty of that trust gap.