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Microsoft shows off tablets to lure Windows 8 developers
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Microsoft has shown off some tablets that run Windows.
Microsoft used the Antipodean leg of its Teched 2011 conference to show off what Windows-based tablets could look like. Microsoft's Jeff Johnson and Patrick Hevesi displayed several tablets but one device stood head and shoulders above others, a slim quad-core device.
Sadly the eyewitness didn't report whether Microsoft's quad-core tablet was using an x86 or ARM chip. Given that Intel has yet to launch a chip that really competes with ARM-based chips from vendors such as Qualcomm, it would be reasonable to think that the tablet hoisted aloft had an ARM-based chip.
Microsoft is drumming up support for the impending arrival of Windows 8 for ARM. By showing off the type of device that Windows will be running on, it hopes that developers will be motivated to code applications for Windows rather than Apple's IOS or Google's Android.
There's no doubt that Microsoft will gain a lot by supporting the ARM architecture. Not only does it not have to wait for Intel to get its tri-gate process node sorted in order to pump out low-power Atom chips, device makers will have to do less work to cobble together devices.
Given that Microsoft won't be releasing Windows 8 until the tail end of 2012, the big question is, will the glut of Android tablets and Apple's Ipad make it impossible for it to get a foothold, regardless of how good the hardware might be? µ
Tags: Microsoft
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If you check the photo's you will see the Fujitsu Infinity logo, mystery solved.
I WONT BE PAYING ANY EARLY-ADOPTER TAX, THANKS.
NOT INTERESTED UNTIL IT GETS PRICED APPROPRIATELY.
IN THE MEANTIME, I GOT A WICKED I5 LAPTOP FOR WELL UNDER $500.
(THE MARKET ZIGS, AND GOOD OLD SHOUTER ZAGS).
Who wouldn't want to wait for the ultimate tablet that can do what all other tablets cannot do - install the internet onto the table and browse the web and point and click and cut and paste and multitask and all of the other things that are so DIFFICULT if not outright IMPOSSIBLE to do with any existing table.
While there is no doubt that current iPad and iPad 2 owners are sure to buy the next iPad (and the next and the next, ad infinitum), Android tablet adoption isn't nearly as much of a sure thing. That leaves the door open for Microsoft to show up at the end of 2012 with a Tablet that runs Windows 8 applications that are hopefully compatible with desktop Windows 8. That offers tremendous opportunities for Microsoft to catch up and even surpass both Apple and Android because of the exponentially larger installed base of Windows users. As long as computers that run Windows 7 are capable of running Windows 8, Microsoft could gain a lot in Tablet sales (IF BALMER DOESN'T SCREW IT UP AND CHARGE TOO DAMN MUCH FOR WINDOWS 8 TABLETS. CHARGING MORE THAN AN iPAD GUARANTEES PEOPLE WON'T BUY THEM. Look what happened when they discounted the HP Touchpad? It suddenly became the hottest selling Tablet.