Intel and Microsoft need to strike a deal or Windows 8 tablets might be priced out of reach for most consumers and Apple officially launches iTunes Match in the Netherlands.
'Wintel' tablets
It was reported on Monday that Intel and Microsoft's unwillingness to strike a deal over hardware and software price quotes could drive up consumer cost of Intel-powered tablets running Windows 8, according to DigiTimes.
Notebook vendor sources estimate that so-called "Wintel" tablets could cost anywhere from $599 to $899, and both companies are reticent to cut component and software costs because doing so could affect the overall PC market and seriously hurt gross profit margins.
The situation becomes more confounding for Intel as its next generation Clover Trail-W platform, which features a low-power Atom processor, is battling ARM platforms from Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments for a place in upcoming mobile devices.
Apple, the de facto leader in the tablet computing market, is also said to be launching the iPad 3 in March. Rumored to be based on a proprietary quad-core processor, Apple's newest tablet will likely disrupt the Wintel tablet market as it builds upon the company's strong-selling iOS line of mobile products.
iTunes Match
Updated terms and conditions for Apple's iTunes Match and a change to an online support page on Monday point to an official rollout of the service in the Netherlands, though links to the cloud-based music matching service have yet to appear on the company's Dutch website.
According to the "iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match Availability" Apple support page, the Netherlands is now listed as one of the countries to offer the music matching service alongside iTunes in the Cloud access to music videos, apps and books.
The €24.99 per year Dutch iTunes Match is identical to its American counterpart, offering all-device access to music in a user's iTunes library up to 25,000 tracks. Users can also upload any song that is not currently on the iTunes server, creating a cloud library for hard to find tracks.
As of this writing an official landing page has yet to appear on either the Apple website or the Netherlands iTunes Store, however a direct purchase link to iTunes Match is now active for users in that country.