Enterprise

Microsoft Is Now The Only Company That Makes A Windows RT Tablet

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dell xps 10 tablet
Dell XPS tablet  Dell

Dell has currently stopped selling its XPS 10 Windows RT tablet and it's not clear yet if Dell has permanently dropped the device or if it will announce a new model next month.

That leaves Microsoft as the only company making a RT device.

What the heck does that mean for Microsoft and Windows 8?

Windows RT is a different version of Windows 8. It only works on cheaper tablets and was designed to compete with the iPad and Android tablets like the Nexus 7.

But people haven't been buying many Windows RT devices, so manufacturers have stopped making them. Dell is the last manufacturer to pull out.

It's most likely that Dell sold out of its tablet after putting it on a fire sale in May, slashing prices by $150 to $300.

A new model seems unlikely though, as, by nearly any measure RT tablets have been a flop. Microsoft itself took a $900 million write-off on its own Surface RT, and slashed prices to $350 from $499 to get people to buy them.

Microsoft is releasing a new version of RT on October 22 and the company's hardware boss Julie Larson-Green continuously insists that Microsoft isn't giving up on RT.

There's one possibility that could get Dell to try again with RT. As part of the deal to take Dell private, Microsoft loaned Dell $2 billion to help finance the deal. That puts Dell in bed with Microsoft in a very close way.

Meanwhile, Dell is holding a launch event in New York on Oct. 2 to announce its new lineup of tablets. This should include details on a new 8-inch Windows 8 Venue tablet running the new Intel Atom processor code-named Bay Trail.

We've reached out to Dell for comment and haven't heard back. Dell has offered no comment to other publications on its plans for a new RT tablet, merely saying we'll find out Dell's lineup in October.

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Julie Bort was Business Insider's Editor at Large for the Tech team. She loves investigating stories and shedding light on the tech industry's most amazing people.Here's a small sample of some of Julie's work.Former Pinterest employees describe a traumatic workplace where managers humiliate employees until they cry, Black people feel alienated, and the toxic culture 'eats away at your soul'Sex, tequila, and a tiger: Employees inside Adam Neumann's WeWork talk about the nonstop party to attain a $100 billion dream and the messy reality that tanked itInsiders say WeWork's IT is a patchwork of cheap devices and Band-Aid fixes that will take millions to fixWeWork's toxic phone booths were created in-house by its Powered by We business70-hour weeks and 'WTF' emails: 42 employees reveal the frenzy of working at Tesla under the 'cult' of Elon MuskElon Musk works so many hours at Tesla, employees are constantly finding him asleep under tables and desksHow this woman went from a Pizza Hut employee to a founder of a $4 billion startupAn Oracle insider explains how some salespeople gamed the system to sell more cloudTHE TAKEDOWN OF TRAVIS KALANICK: The untold story of Uber's infighting, backstabbing, and multimillion-dollar exit packagesMicrosoft is in talks to buy GitHub, a startup at the center of the software world last valued at $2 billionThe alarming inside story of a failed Google acquisition, and an employee who was hospitalizedInside Facebook's plan to eat another $350 billion IT marketHow a registered sex offender wound up living in an Airbnb hosting unsuspecting guestsA controversial ex-banker is the person who really runs Twitter — and he's gambling the company's future on one risky betSecret passages and skipped meals: Oracle's CEO gave us a rare peek at what it really takes to run a $37 billion companyHP told some employees to choose between becoming contractors with no benefits or being fired without severance'I felt like we were being extorted': Customer says Oracle tried to strong-arm him into a cloud saleHow the queen of Silicon Valley is helping Google go after Amazon's most profitable businessAirbnb host: A guest is squatting in my condo and I can't get him to leaveLIES, BOOZE, AND BILLIONS: How one of the fastest-growing startups in Silicon Valley history raised $580 million then spiraled out of controlGitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart — and we have the full inside storyWhen she's not writing for Business Insider, Julie can usually be found on the trails, on my mountain bike, or on my skis, if you know where to look.