Like its fellow OEM HP (HPQ), Lenovo (LNVGY) is refusing to join the Microsoft (MSFT) Surface crybaby brigade and is instead concentrating on building a competitive tablet. Bloomberg this week caught up with David Schmoock, chief of Lenovo’s North America operations, who said that Lenovo’s best opportunity to make a dent in the tablet market was to use Windows RT for all its tablets. The reason, he said, is pretty simple: Window RT devices can be priced between $300 and $400 while Windows 8 tablets will be priced in the $600 to $700 range.
“RT will play in consumer and retail at very aggressive price points,” he said. “It will do well but it’s going to be more of a consumer price point play to begin with.”
In a related report, Computerworld UK says that Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing isn’t too worried about his company’s ability to compete with the Surface, claiming that Microsoft will be just another competitor in the Windows tablet market.
“Microsoft are strong in the software, but I don’t believe they can provide the best hardware in the world. Lenovo can,” he said. “We are still confident in ourselves. We are providing much better hardware than our competitors including Microsoft.”
