ASUS Officially Withdraws from Windows RT, Underscores Commitment to Mobile with ‘Hero’ Products
A couple of weeks ago, we reported on some comments made by ASUS' CEO Jonney Shih about Windows RT. Simply put, "The result is not very promising". It's no surprise, then, to learn today that the company has officially decided to pull out of the Windows RT market, and few could blame it. Shih said in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal, "It's not only our opinion, the industry sentiment is also that Windows RT has not been successful."
It's clear that ASUS has taken a loss thanks to its bet placed on Windows RT, but as has become clear since RT's launch, it's not the hardware that's at fault. Arguments have been made time and time again that the apps available for the platform are far too paltry, and that is likely the lone reason for the "failure". We'd imagine that ARM doesn't quite like this outcome, because its SoCs aren't the problem either, and it has little or no control over what Microsoft does with its app store.
During an earnings conference, ASUS reiterated its commitment to mobile products on Intel platforms (no mention is made of AMD), and has made mention of its "Hero" products as hints to its success. "Hero" seems to refer to ASUS' products that have either been truly successful or innovative. On the notebook side, the company references its TAICHI, Transformer Book, ZENBOOK TOUCH and VivoBook. Tablet-wise, TF700T, TF300T, and of course, Nexus 7. Phones, Padfone Infinity, Padfone 2 and FonePad.
With ASUS backing out of Windows RT, it's going to be interesting to see how things fare over the next couple of months with the platform. As Shih truthfully said, the opinion on RT isn't unique to ASUS, and reports are that NVIDIA blames RT for its poor second quarter revenues.
What on earth can Microsoft do with RT now? Do you see see the company being able to turn things around for the platform?