While Microsoft has yet to officially announce the price of their Microsoft Surface Windows 8 tablet, some have speculated that it could be priced at $199 which would make it a pretty competitive offering against Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the Google Nexus 7. While we wait for Microsoft to announce the price, a report from Digitimes has said that ASUS will be pricing their own Windows 8 tablet offerings based on the prices of the iPad.
It is not clear as to what is meant by “reference” – could it be that ASUS will price it the same as Apple’s current iPad, or will they price it lower to undercut Apple, or maybe even higher if they see their products as being vastly superior? ASUS has also reportedly “warned” Microsoft by saying, “if Microsoft launches its Surface at US$199…it will cause difficulty for [the survival of] Asustek’s Windows-based tablet.” We guess that’s also one of the reasons why many of Microsoft’s OEM partners weren’t too thrilled about Microsoft making their own hardware since the prices Microsoft uses could work against their partners.