About two hours ago a story was posted by Dina Bass over at the Bloomberg Technology News site that reports Microsoft maybe considering dropping the licensing cost for some Windows 8.1 based devices.

According to the story this 70% drop in licensing fees per device would apply to any Windows 8.1 machine that costs less than $250 regardless of the size of the device.

I have no doubt that this story will generate lots of discussions over the weekend and into next week however, it causes me concerns in a couple of areas.

  • Currently there are not any devices on the market that hit below this $250 threshold.  Yes, there are a couple of devices on the market that are currently selling below $250 but the original selling price was well above that mark. That means this current collection of Windows 8.1 machines would not qualify for this $15 per license pricing.

Now I am sure many OEM’s will see this as a possible opportunity to dive back into manufacturing Windows tablets that might come in under the $250 price tag.  I mean we all know why those OEM’s did not go forward with Microsoft’s Windows RT – because many users want a full Windows experience on their tablets.  Plus, lets be honest, the concept of Windows RT did create a lot of confusion when it came out.

Now there is a nice crop of 8” and 10” tablets out in the marketplace currently that run the regular version of Windows 8.1 but lets take a look at the basic specs you typically see on the more popular ones and their prices:

  • ASUS Vivotab Smart ME400C-C2-BK 10.1-Inch 64GB Tablet
    • Intel Atom Z2760 (Dual Core 1.8GHz)
    • 64GB Flash Memory
    • 2GB RAM
    • 10.1 inch display
    • 1366 x 768 pixels
    • $499.00 (MSRP)
  • Dell Venue 8 Pro 32 GB Tablet
    • Intel Atom Z3740 (Quad Core 1.8 GHz)
    • 32 GB Flash Memory
    • 2 GB RAM
    • 8 inch display
    • 1280 x 800 pixels
    • $299.00 (MSRP)
  • Dell Venue 8 Pro 64 GB Tablet
    • Intel Atom Z3740 (Quad Core 1.8 GHz)
    • 64 GB Flash Memory
    • 2 GB RAM
    • 8 inch display
    • 1280 x 800 pixels
    • $349.00 (MSRP)
  • Lenovo IdeaTab Miix2 8-Inch 32 GB Tablet
    • Intel Atom Z3740 (Quad Core 1.3 GHz)
    • 32 GB Flash Memory
    • 2 GB RAM
    • 8 inch display
    • 1280 x 800 pixels
    • $299.00 (MSRP)
  • Lenovo IdeaTab Miix2 8-Inch 64 GB Tablet
    • Intel Atom Z3740 (Quad Core 1.3 GHz)
    • 32 GB Flash Memory
    • 2 GB RAM
    • 8 inch display
    • 1280 x 800 pixels
    • $299.00 (MSRP)
  • Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10.1-Inch 64GB Tablet (Silver)
    • Intel Atom Z2760 (Dual Core 1.8 GHz)
    • 64GB Flash Memory
    • 2 GB RAM
    • 10.1 inch display
    • 1366 x 768 pixels
    • $499.99 (MSRP)

As you can see all of the devices run Atom processors ranging from dual to quad cores and each have 2 GB of RAM.  Those are fairly low end specs yet the prices are still above the $250 price range that this licensing reduction would apply to.  Even if you subtract the $35 discount to the prices listed above you still do not get down below $250 for any of those devices.

That is what brings me to my final concern with this enticement to sell Windows devices below the $250 barrier – what will the quality and specs of the devices be if last years models could not get down close to that price with the low end specs?

All this will do is encourage OEM’s to cut corners in quality and technology to get down in that pricing area. If that happens then we end up back where we were a few years ago with low quality products that do not last and break down easily.

When those machines were running poorly due to low specs the users did not say this computer is slow they said Windows is slow.

OEM’s are finally getting creative with form factors and quality – why would we want to see that progress go backwards at all?