“Microsoft may be hoping to more directly challenge Apple with a self-branded Windows 8 tablet, part suppliers asserted in a rumor on Tuesday,” Electronista reports.
“The company would collaborate directly with TI, possibly using its 1.8GHz OMAP4470 chip, and brand it much the way the company has the Xbox 360 or Zune,” Electronista reports. “The company was said by Digitimes to be keeping a ‘low profile,’ in part to give it the opportunity to scrap the project without much attention.”
Electronista reports, “While Microsoft had no reservations competing in the MP3 player space with the Zune, negating third-party hardware that had already been failing to compete with the iPod, a move into designing its own tablet PC would be challenging its core business. PC manufacturers aren’t expected to react in the short term but would likely balk knowing that Microsoft would favor its own hardware in marketing Windows 8… The iPad has been a sore point for Microsoft. It had pushed Windows-based tablet PCs for eight years but, in nine months, had seen Apple outsell every Windows tablet ever made.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Stillborn.