Microsoft who appears to have been left behind in the race to get tablet technology to market has confirmed that they will have a touch tablet offering in the market by Xmas with Telstra tipped to be a key partner in Australia for the Windows OS device, however it is not known which vendors will use the Windows software.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive said in London today, “As a company, we need to cover all form factors”. His comments came after answering questions from students and media at the London School of Economics. “We’ve done work on a Windows tablet, and you’ll see slates with Windows on from this Christmas “he said.
Among the vendors tipped to be working with Microsoft are Dell, HP and Samsung. In Australia Telstra executives have confirmed that they are “across” Microsoft’s plans for a tablet PC.
Speculation is mounting that Microsoft will show a working tablet on Tuesday morning in Sydney when Telstra and Microsoft hold a press conference to launch their Windows Phone 7 offering.
Currently the bulk of Tablet offerings are based on Google’s Android operating system and Microsoft is thought to be keen to ensure it has a foothold in this market. There is also speculation that the tablets they announce will run software named Windows Tablet 7 with the OS based on their new Windows Phone 7 offering.
Earlier this week a long time partner of Microsoft LG Electronics said that it had scrapped a plan to launch a tablet computer based on Google Inc’s Android 2.2 operation system known as “Froyo”.
However insiders are tipping that LG will instead switch to a Windows based tablet after one Korean based executive told me that the market for Android based devices is “set to be cluttered”. They said that LG was aware of what Microsoft was planning for the tablet market.
“Google needs to deliver Android 3.0, this will allow for the development of new applications which we believe are important if we are to deliver a tablet with a high resolution display” they said.
They refused to say whether LG was planning to launch an OLED tablet.
