14 DAY TRIAL // We have just said that Microsoft will offer Windows RT to more OEMs starting in January, but there are things closer to our times that we should talk about in the meantime, like one company's decision not to be part of the first wave.
It wasn't really advertised, but reports say that a certain major IT player has decided not to be part of the initial wave of Windows RT tablet models.
The company in question is HP, one of Qualcomm's partners, so, naturally, people have started guessing who would take its place.
One would think this would be a non-issue and that everyone could try their hand at Windows RT tablets if they wanted to.
This is not the case, though. Microsoft has a very strict policy about what the list of Windows RT providers can look like.
NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments are the three suppliers of ARM chips set to power Windows RT (Windows 8 for ARM) slates.
Each was told to take two manufacturers, at most. NVIDIA got Lenovo and ASUS, Texas Instruments chose Toshiba and Qualcomm got HP and Samsung.
With HP out of the picture, rumor has it that Dell wants to take over, though there might be some attempts on the part of Sony and Acer as well.
Microsoft will launch Windows 8, and its ARM version, in October, which means that the Surface and its competitors will debut around the same time. Dell will have to be quick if it wants to become one of the six, and even faster at design and mass production if it is to succeed in meeting the deadline.
Any other interested corporation will have to wait until January 2013, when Microsoft will finally allow others to try their hand at the hardware-software combination. Thus, CES 2013 is sure to be packed with such things, even though Microsoft itself won't have much to surprise the Earth with at that point.