Windows RT, when first announced, sounded like an amazing deal. It still is a marvelous platform, but the fact that it cannot run x86 apps took the gleam off of Windows RT devices.
Since it’s just another version of Windows 8, the RT operating system has (or can acquire) the ability to run native PC programs, but it is the ARM architecture itself that requires the applications to be coded differently.
Nevertheless, a few companies are already distancing themselves from Microsoft’s ARM-based Windows. The most prominent of the bunch being Samsung, which recently said that it had no immediate plans for developing Windows RT based hardware devices.
But Dell is one hardware vendor that is not in this camp.
The PC maker admits that while devices running Windows RT are few and far between, and demand for them is equally weak for the time being, it still believes in the future of the platform.
Vice president of Dell, Neil Hand is reported by CNET as saying the company is not jumping ship just yet:
“Demand is not where I would like it to be at this point in time. The amount of market information about it is not good enough, and the market sentiment is still pretty negative.”
Nevertheless, the deal is still on, and while the short-term outlook is not very promising, the hardware maker believes that ARM architecture has enough going for it in the long-term that warrants attention.
If anything, Dell plans to launch new Windows RT models in the near future, though the executive did not provide any specific details on when and what it has in the pipeline.
For now, though, the company is only selling one Windows RT tablet, the Dell XPS 10.
