Samsung scraps Windows RT U.S. tablet plans

Samsung will not be releasing its Windows RT device across America as retail partners 'don't see strong demand.'

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung's head of PC and tablet business in the U.S. Mike Abary says the company won't be launching its Qualcomm-powered Windows RT, and have yet to decide on plans for non-U.S. markets.

"There wasn't really a very clear positioning of what Windows RT meant in the marketplace, what it stood for relative to Windows 8, that was being done in an effective manner to the consumer," Abary told CNET.

"When we did some tests and studies on how we could go to market with a Windows RT device, we determined there was a lot of heavy lifting we still needed to do to educate the customer on what Windows RT was.

"And that heavy lifting was going to require pretty heavy investment.

"When we added those two things up, the investments necessary to educate the consumer on the difference between RT and Windows 8, plus the modest feedback that we got regarding how successful could this be at retail from our retail partners, we decided maybe we ought to wait."

Abary went on to say that Windows RT devices should be cheaper than those using Windows 8, but found that not to be the case.

"We didn't necessarily attain the price point that we hoped to attain," he said.

"It's not an issue on Microsoft's side. It's more an issue of how the product was built and some of the tradeoffs we had to incorporate in it.

"We want to see how the market develops for RT. It's not something we're shelving permanently.

"It's still a viable option for us in the future, but now might not be the right time."