Nvidia CEO : Windows RT Is Disappointing
Add Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang to the list of people disappointed with the debut of Windows RT.
[pullquote_left] “We expected to have sold more than we did,” he said Tuesday. “I think everybody expected to have sold more than we did.” [/pullquote_left]
Huang was speaking to financial analysts on the sidelines of Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California.
That “everybody” includes companies like Samsung, which launched the Ativ Tab with Windows RT, then canceled its future Windows RT tablet plans.
Toshiba pulled out from Windows RT production before it even released a single RT device.
Meanwhile, next to the Microsoft Surface RT, the Asus Vivo Tab RT,Lenovo Ideapad Yoga, and Dell XPS 10 have been hanging in there.
Windows RT is a version of Windows 8 for Arm-based chips like Nvidia’s Tegra processors. Traditional versions of Windows are written to run on Intel and compatible chips, but they won’t run on Arm processors. With Arm becoming so popular in tablet computers, Microsoft developed Windows RT to match Android.
While Huang’s comments on Windows RT’s current lack of success were to be expected, he then surprised the analysts by his pleas for Microsoft to launch an Outlook client that would run on Windows RT. In fact, he flat out said he has been praying to the “Outlook God” to make this happen.
He stated that if Outlook for Windows RT were released, “It would make my life complete. My life would be complete. I don’t know about you guys but I would need nothing else. I am one Outlook away from computing nirvana and I just hoping he is listening now. Outlook God, please.”
At the moment, the only Microsoft mail client for Windows RT is the Mail Modern app.