Dell May be the Latest OEM to Kill the Failed Windows RT Experiment

From DailyTech: At the 2013 Intel Developer Forum (IDF), Dell Inc. (DELL) hinted at a Oct. 2 launch event for a new family of Venue tablets. The big question was whether Intel would have any place in Dell's tablets. At the time Dell was selling the XPS 10 tablet, which ran Windows RT on top of Qualcomm, Inc.'s (QCOM) Snapdragon S4 -- an ARM architecture chip.

Now the tables have turned.

At IDF Dell made it clear than Intel Corp.'s (INTC) new 22 nm tablet system-on-a-chip designs -- Bay Trail -- will be onboard at least some of the Venue models. And this week the XPS 10 disappeared from Dell's website -- apparently discontinued. The tablet had seen poor sales and numerous price cuts as Dell struggled to sell consumers on its ARM device.

Now people are asking the reverse -- do ARM chipmakers have any place in Windows tablets?

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has defiantly announced that it is sticking to its support of ARM processors -- which are found in the Google Inc. (GOOG) Android designs that lead the market and in second-place Apple, Inc.'s (AAPL) iPad. Microsoft has committed to launch Windows 8.1 RT, a refresh to the ARM-based version of Windows, along side Windows 8.1 for x86.

Microsoft this week announced that the Surface 2 would run Windows 8.1 RT and feature a Tegra 4 ARM processor from NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA). But so far Microsoft is the only OEM to announce a Windows 8.1 RT device. And the only other prototype Windows RT device pictured thus far has been a tablet from Microsoft's new hardware subsidiary Nokia Oyj. (HEX:NOK1V).

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