HP Said to Dump Microsoft over Surface: WART is No Longer Welcome at Most OEMs

Charlie Demerjian | SemiAccurate | June 29, 2012

Remember when we said that Microsoft management was essentially incompetent and destroyed their partner relationships with a single WARTy Surface? We were being too kind, their largest OEM, HP, just bailed.

Yes, if rumors SemiAccurate hears are true, a whole flock of formerly close Microsoft partners just decided that their new best friend is now Google, Microsoft is no longer relevant to computing’s future. Most were debating whether or not to bother with WART (Windows on Arm RT) devices, and struggling to find a reason to do so. Then Microsoft just unveiled one of the largest and most unethical industrial espionage campaigns of the last few decades, so it is no surprise that everyone is jumping ship...

Open Health News' Take: 

With HP bailing out of Microsoft's Windows on ARM RT (or “WART”) platform, soon to be followed by all other major tablet makers, the industry now has an opportunity to focus on two sets of platforms, the iPad, running iOS, and a set of open source contenders that include Android, WebOS, KDE, MeGoo, MER Project, and Tizen. Peter Groen wrote an excellent review of the Tablet OS' which can be read here. With Tablets becoming the primary device for physicians, health IT developers can now focus their time and efforts on just these two sets of choices. We should all thank Steve Ballmer for removing the Microsoft option from the table. -Roger A. Maduro, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Open Health News.