Today’s rumour is surrounding Taiwanese tech giant HTC who could be readying up their first Windows RT tablet for launch early in 2013, according to a report on major industry website Bloomberg. What this means is that HTC could be bringing it’s big name to the Windows 8 tablet race and adding significant sway to the newest tablet OS.
Reportedly HTC is planning to launch a 7-inch tablet next year and the same sources are also reporting that a much larger 12-inch version will be set to follow the 7-incher not long afterwards.
Reportedly both tablets would run on nippy Qualcomm processors (currently the norm is over 1.5GHz so we would expect somewhere around this for a new tablet) and that they will also double up with smartphone functionality by having call making abilities too.
The HTC tablets are rumoured to be set for a summer/late summer release with the company having built up to the final launch from a supposed announcement a few months earlier.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was said to be meeting with Peter Chou of HTC recently to discuss the Taiwanese company’s Windows Phone plans. The two would also discuss Windows RT tablets at the meeting.
Microsoft will need to start looking for a few big named partners to get its new touchscreen-centric OS off the ground to really see it take off in terms of sales, and a well-known company like HTC would be a good starting point.
With stiff tablet competition already there in the way from Google, Samsung and Apple, Windows 8 needs to get a big product with a big name on the market ASAP to hope to survive the OS battle.
Rumours are also surrounding a Nokia based tablet that could be in the works. Nokia has been one of the Windows Phone OS’ biggest supporters since its rebrand last year and now the companies who already work close together on the smartphone range could be looking to extend their friendship into the tablet market.
We will expect to see a lot more about forthcoming Windows 8 products at February’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona and the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas at the start of 2013.