[citation][nom]tiltowait[/nom]Direct competitor to Surface RT? Atom based tablet has battery life rivaling Surface RT and slightly better performance. Combined that with able to run all applications, one cannot help but think that maybe the whole RT fork is nothing but a distraction in the long run.[/citation]First of all they had to make Windows RT, to push Intel to provide efficient and AFFORDABLE x86 chips. If they didn't have RT and Surface, Intel's prices for tablet chips would be higher. They were porting the NT kernel to ARM anyway for WP8, so there was a lot of development synergy there.
Also keep in mind that ARM SoCs are improving at a rapid pace, and as more and more impressive chips hit the market, there will be a place for future WinRT consumer tablets. Plus it keeps Intel's prices in check, although in the future hopefully AMD's tablet chips will help a lot in that department.
That brings up one final point, however. Intel is using outdated graphics. I'm not sure if it is a power problem, thermal issue, or what. But instead of using 2-4 current PowerVR cores like Apple, they're using a single slightly older core (although they did clock it pretty high). Even though Tegra 3 is rather outdated, on the graphics front Tegra 3 still wins. This Intel tablet is just not good for games, this go around (and probably for the forseeable future).
I'm hoping a Temash tablet will come out soon to bring both x86 and decent graphics to tablets.