According to a report by industry insiders, DigiTimes, it appears that the Redmond giant has dropped its Taiwanese partners (or at the very least, de-prioritized them) from the production of upcoming tablets based on its next generation Windows operating system. Microsoft has been reported about talking to NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Intel and AMD, saying they would love to see “Windows 8”-powered tablets from Samsung, HP and Dell. But apparently, Asus, Acer, HTC and other top Asian vendors were left out of the early party:
Taiwan-based PC vendors who have been in long-term partnerships with Microsoft have complained to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) because they were not invited to participate, and hope for the government’s negotiation with Microsoft, the sources added.
While the reasons to why the Taiwanese manufacturers were not invited are unknown, could it be that Microsoft plans to let them into the Windows 8 party at a later date? Acer and Asus have recently released high-end tablets with dual-screens and an Android tablet/Windows PC mode, while HTC has only released an Android tablet. On the other hand, Samsung is well-known for its lineup of Galaxy Tab Android tablets, so it’s uncertain to why Microsoft would exclude the Taiwanese manufacturers for tablets that will use its upcoming OS. What are your thoughts?