With Surface, does Microsoft trust the fate of Windows 8 to OEMs?

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) might be planning to sell its Surface for Windows RT tablet for $199, a staggeringly low price to potentially counter Google Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire tablets. Is Microsoft ready to make some Surface tablets loss leaders, figuring to make up the shortfall on application and media sales, according to a published report?

During its Q3 2013 earnings call today, Microsoft’s outgoing CFO Peter Klein noted that the company plans to bring Windows 8 to smaller devices.

Some OEMs and OEMs are far from convinced that Windows 8 will reinvigorate PC sales, and are worried that if Microsoft low balls the price of its Windows RT-powered Surface tablet, this could have a negative knock-on effect on sales.

Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets were supposed to drive demand for Windows Phone 8 devices. The business plan went like this: Sell lots of touch-enabled tablets running Windows 8 Pro or Windows RT, and consumers would flock to similar smartphones and ultrabooks.

It’s about damn time. Microsoft announced the Surface product family on June 18th. After eight months of waiting, Microsoft announced that on February 9, the fully-capable, Windows 8-packing, Intel-powered, actually-really-novel Surface 8 Pro will finally hit stores in the U.S. and Canada. The Surface Pro is the big daddy in the Surface family.

It’s Surfaced again: the rumour that Microsoft is developing its own smartphone hardware in a bid to drive wider adoption of its Windows Phone OS. Ever since Microsoft distressed its desktop Windows OEMs by unveiling its own-brand tablet PC, called Surface, the logical leap required to imagine an own-brand Windows Phone has apparently been shrinking.

Microsoft understands that building its own line of Surface tablets is going to upset the OEMs, but it's doing it anyway because there's not much the OEMs can do about it.

Bloomberg is reporting this morning that Microsoft is cutting the price of Windows RT for small tablets in a seemingly desperate bid to spur sales. It’s a rather predictable move and a touch sad. Tablets based on Windows RT, an operating system that’s pure garbage, are not selling, because, referring to my first point, Windows RT is trash.

Redmond is getting ready to go to war, tablet war against iOS and Android — with the looming launch of its Windows 8-powered Surface slate, due to get the final reveal on October 25. Yesterday Microsoft ramped up the marketing blitz with a new Windows 8 commercial. Today it’s pushed the button on Surface banner ads (h/t to the Verge for spotting).