Qualcomm: Microsoft's Surface 2 can't compare to Nokia's Windows tablet
However, Windows RT has some big drawbacks compared with Windows 8. For one, it's not compatible with many older applications, including iTunes. Few companies have introduced products running the operating system. Dell, Samsung, Toshiba, and Hewlett-Packard are several who dropped their Windows RT plans. "We have a longer term view on these things," Talluri said. "The RT of today may not be the RT of tomorrow. But the vision of a device that's both your entertainment and productivity device that you want to carry with you is going to be there. We invest for the longer term."In smartphones, meanwhile, Qualcomm is the undisputed king. It either provides the wireless chips, such as 4G LTE, or the application processor in most major devices on the market, including the iPhone 5S and Galaxy S4. It also is the chip provider for Windows Phones, partnering closely with Nokia over the years. However, Qualcomm has lagged rivals when it comes to tablets. That recently has started to change, with Qualcomm providing chips for recent hot tablets such as the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 and the Google Nexus 7.Qualcomm said partners are working on more than 40 tablets using its processor that should hit the market within the next year. A big reason companies are choosing Qualcomm chips is the ability to support high screen resolutions, Talluri said, and many who work with Qualcomm on smartphones find it easy to shift to tablets with the chipmaker. "Once you make the phone, it's an easy step to make a great tablet because you've already done the hard work and the same processor can support both," Talluri said.And Horton pointed out that the first Android devices, such as the T-Mobile G1, also were panned."Google and Microsoft are very capable organizations, [with] lots of technologies," Horton said. Microsoft "didn't hit a home run out of the gate on the very first product, but they're working on it." A look at Nokia's first tablet, the Lumia...See full gallery1 - 4 / 18NextPrevZack Whittaker contributed to this report.Updated at 8 a.m. PT on Oct. 29 with comment from Qualcomm.
