Microsoft slates new tablets for CES 2011

Anthony Caruana
Tuesday, 14 December 2010 21:30

Your IT - Mobility

After the embarrassment of CES 2010 when Microsoft prematurely published a press release showing off a HP tablet that never ended up seeing light of day after Apple's iPad swept aside all-comers in the tablet market, Microsoft is once again pushing what CEO Steve Ballmer called 'job number one' at the company's Financial Analyst Meeting, held  earlier this year.

With Samsung, Viewsonic, Telstra and slew of OEMs in South East Asia producing tablets running either Windows 7 or Android - some even allowing dual boot - it's clear that everyone thinks that the market is hungry for tablets now that Apple has shown that a slate-type computer can sell in huge volumes.

At the start of 2010, Windows 7 had only been on the market for a few months and while reaction had been largely positive it was, for many people, still something of an unknown quantity. However, Windows 7 is now well and truly mainstream. For mobile devices, Windows 7 has been a huge boost as its lower CPU and memory requirements, compared to the maligned Vista, has enabled Microsoft to get Windows 7 onto many more machines.

In addition, Windows 7 was designed with touchscreen devices in mind. Out of the box support for hardware and multitouch meant that the clunky driver and proprietary software installation that was a fact of life with Windows XP - the tablet market largely ignored Vista - is a thing of the past.

All that means that the time is right if Microsoft is going to seriously dent Apple's dominance of this platform. They've got a great operating system - the best they've ever produced (as an aside, we suspect that Vista will be held in the same regard as Windows ME when the history books are written) and marketplace hungry for two things - great tablets and choice.

According to a report from Digitimes, netbook sales are going to fall with tablets likely to replace as much as 40% of that market. For Microsoft, they'll be hoping that the contraction of the netback market will be covered by the sale of many more tablets. However, Apple has set the bar very high. None of the devices we've seen have been able to match the iPad's tightrope walk between size, functionality and price. We're not saying the iPad isn't without its faults like lacking USB, a camera and easy video output. However, Apple can get away with those issues as the rest of the package is so compelling.

One part of the Apple iPad ecosystem that Microsoft is capable of replicating is the App Store. Microsoft has a powerful army of developers that could, if Microsoft gets their act together, be mobilised to rival the App Store. If Microsoft can work with OEMs to deliver great hardware that offers more than the iPad - simply matching it isn't enough (Zune anyone?) - and gets the application side of things right then it's possible that Apple's iPad 2 will have some serious competition.