14 DAY TRIAL // There are tons of reports concerning Windows 8’s early sales performance, including an official statement belonging to Microsoft, but when it comes to those involved in the hardware industry, the new OS isn’t selling well at this moment.
Jerry Kao, associate vice president of Acer’s business unit, confirmed that Windows 8 had failed to excite in its first months on the market, despite Microsoft’s statistics that it had sold a total of 60 million units since launch.
One of the reasons for this fairly disappointing uptake is the launch date, as October 26 “is not in line with any retail cycle,” Kao was quoted as saying by ITProPortal. The holiday season or the “Back to School” campaigns would have been better choices, he added.
Acer prefers to stay away from Windows RT mostly because users need to be educated on the features of this new OS and the lack of support for legacy apps could stir up confusion among buyers, Kao explained.
Samsung has recently revealed that it had no intention to launch Windows RT tablets in the United States for a pretty similar reason, emphasizing that most customers would need extra training on the way Microsoft’s tablet-oriented operating system should be used.
Samsung has even dubbed Windows RT a confusing operating system, as the Modern interface and the lack of a Start button may keep buyers away. The company admitted, however, that choosing Windows RT was still possible at some point in the future, but it all depends on the market reaction to the new OS.
“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,” Samsung Executive Mike Abary was quoted as saying by The Verge.