Microsoft, desperately putting ‘The Best Tablet-Foot Forward’

It can only be a company of the stature as Microsoft that can continue battling and trying real hard to make it big in every field that it enters. No matter how much competition it faces from stalwarts like Apple, Google, etc. in the Tablet market (which is dominated by iPads) Microsoft is bent on making it big here too. This time the idea is to run a demo on using the Windows 7 Tablet at CES 2011, wherein Steve Ballmer is reportedly said to showcase Samsung and Dell devices along with other manufacturers. The focus this time would be to encourage partners of Microsoft to develop apps that emphasizes on HTML5 and these apps will be hosted on Microsoft’s website rather than being sold through specific agents.

Rumors doing rounds suggest that the Samsung tablet to be portrayed in the event will operate with Windows 7 in the landscape mode and will possess another OS interface while in the portrait mode. When asked to comment on any of the above news, spokesperson Sarah Reid, who works at the software giant’s public relations agency, Waggener-Edstrom said, “Microsoft makes it a practice to not comment on rumors or speculation.”

This is not the first time that Microsoft has tried to show off its Windows 7 tablets. Apparently, a year ago at the CES 2010, Ballmer showcased HP’s Slate tablet which later began developing its own webOS operating system instead of running on Windows 7. There are also heavy but obvious chances of Samsung and Dell operating on Android tablets, but will Microsoft’s Windows 7 get some respite from tablet makers; this only time will tell. Kevin Burden, a vice president at ABI Research said “The division at Dell that would build a tablet is the same division that built the Streak, and those guys have told me that Android is the key operating system for their mobile phones.” Burden added and by this made it clear that Windows 7 will have a tough fight “I don’t imagine they’d want to take whatever work they’re doing on the Android tablet and come out with a Windows 7 or Windows Phone 7 tablet. Dell’s building expertise in Android, so 80 percent of their development is going into that OS.”

Another big question now is which OS will Microsoft tablets run on and the response to this will in fact answer yet another question of how Microsoft will position its tablets. Windows 7 put into any device can do anything and everything, but you might as well have a PC for this. But the Windows Phone 7 is tailor made for Tablets which showers users with whatever applications they want, like that in a Smartphone. Since it is clear from Ballmer that it is going to be a Windows 7 tablet, all we can do is wait. Wait until the Windows 8 is launched since most of us already own a PC and the launch of Windows 8 in all like-ability won’t happen for the next couple of years.

There are two reasons why Microsoft is striving to make it big in the Tablet market. One is its own efforts to cannibalize its PC market and, two is because according to Goldman Sachs, tablets will eat into 35 percent of the PC market next year. These are palpable reasons for someone who has made it so big in the PC market to now make it big in the Tablet market.

I can only wish Microsoft - all the very best for their tablet endeavors.