Windows 8 coming with strict hardware requirement for tablets, complains Acer

We are waiting with baited breath the preview of Windows 8 in its tablet edition by two Microsoft executives at the D9 conference in California and the Computex 2011 expo in Taiwan this week.

While we are taking the role of spectators, OEM manufacturers and Acer in particular, are sweating at the sight of Microsoft's reference hardware requirements, which Acer's CEO called "very troublesome". CEO J.T. Wang has stopped short of disclosing details what these might be, but said: "They’re really controlling the whole thing, the whole process".

Well, Redmond obviously doesn't want their creation to feel underpowered, but if they are directly demanding quad-core, we feel Acer's pain. Joking aside, Microsoft introduced a similar approach for the hardware specs of its Windows Phone 7 chassis. Frankly, this ensured consistent experience with the platform across the board, and, despite that all handsets are powered by a first generation 1GHz Snapdragon, WP7 has one of the most fluid, easy-going minimalistic interfaces out there.

Microsoft is most likely trying to replicate this experience in the Windows 8 tablets too, and we are just itching to understand if these reference hardware requirements Acer is talking about are for x86, or ARM-based chipsets. NVIDIA Tegra 2 was the silicon of choice for the initial demos, but we should know for sure pretty soon, since both conferences will be in full motion today and in the next few days.

source: Bloomberg via WMPowerUser