Mike Abary, a Samsung executive in charge of the company's American PC and tablet businesses, toldCNet at this week's Consumer Electronics Show that it would require "a lot of heavy lifting" to educate consumers on the difference between Windows 8 and Windows RT. With retail partners also signaling that Windows RT has "modest" potential for success, Samsung decided it wasn't interested in making that investment in the U.S. market.

Abary also said that Samsung had difficulties hitting the lower price points the company felt it needed to achieve. The Korean electronics maker believes that Windows RT devices should be less expensive than PCs running the full Windows 8 operating system.

"We didn't necessarily attain the price point we hoped to Attain," Abary said. He noted that some of the sacrifices the company explored to cut costs, such as including less memory, were poor tradeoffs.

Samsung could still build to opt Windows RT devices in the future, if some of the current obstacles cease to exist. Abary told CNet his company will wait to see how the market develops for Windows RT.

"It's not something we're shelving permanently," he said. "It's still a viable option for us in the future, but right now might not be the right time."

Samsung has, however, invested heavily in tablets running Google's Android operating system. Windows RT is a stripped down version of Microsoft's desktop operating system compatible with low-power ARM CPUs like those found in Apple's iPad.

It's Windows RT's reliance on ARM processors that prevents it from running traditional Windows applications. The underlying architecture of Windows RT is very different from Windows 8, preventing it from running legacy Windows applications.