It’s safe to say that Jun Dong-soo, the head of Samsung’s (005930) memory chip business, won’t be getting a Christmas card from Steve Ballmer this year. The Korea Times reports that Jun told reporters on Friday that Windows 8 has failed to boost demand for personal computers and even compared Microsoft’s (MSFT) newest operating system to the much-derided Vista platform.
“The global PC industry is steadily shrinking despite the launch of Windows 8,” he said. “I think the Windows 8 system is no better than the previous Windows Vista platform.”
Jun also hit Microsoft over the “lackluster demand” it had generated with its Surface tablet and even went so far as to claim that ultrabooks had flopped “mostly because” they came installed with “the less competitive Windows platform.”
Jun isn’t the first OEM executive to fume about Windows 8, of course, but his remarks are particularly interesting because they come shortly after Samsung decided to pull its Windows RT-based ATIV Tab off both the German and American markets. If other OEMs become similarly frustrated with their inability to move Windows 8 and Windows RT machines over the next few months, it could be a very long year for Microsoft.