Tablet scene heating up as Microsoft announces plans for Windows slates

Microsoft will release a number of tablet devices over the next year, all powered by Windows 7, in order to catch up to the Apple iPad and dominate the relatively new market, chief executive Steve Ballmer said yesterday.

While the company has a way to go before it can reach Apple’s three million iPad sales, one analyst suggests Microsoft has plenty of room and time to establish itself in the market.

Ballmer said the Worldwide Partners Conference in Washington D.C. the company was partnering with a number of major manufacturers to deliver a variety of tablet-like devices, all featuring Windows 7 software.

“They’ll come from the people you would expect – from Asus, from Dell, from Samsung, from Toshiba, from Sony – Windows 7-based slates,” Ballmer said.

“They’ll come with keyboards, they’ll come without keyboards, they’ll be dockable, there’ll be many form factors, many price points, many sizes,” he said. “But they will all run Windows 7. They will run Windows 7 applications. They will run Office.”

The promise of variety is a direct contrast to Apple’s iPad, which is being marketed on its simplicity and relatively simple user interface. Microsoft, however, is pushing more models in order to allow customers to choose the model they believe suits them best.

“Over the course of the next several months you will see a range of Windows 7-based slates that I think you’ll find quite impressive,” he said. “This is a terribly important area for us,” he said.

Other manufacturing partners included Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Panasonic and Pegatron.

While some may suggest Microsoft has a long way to go before it can challenge Apple’s early dominance in the tablet sector, Ovum research director David Kennedy says the software giant has a good chance of catching up.

“The first thing to note is that tablets have been around for a long time in some sort or another. The iPad is certainly an important milestone, in that Apple is lending its brand to the development of this market. But it really does have a long way to go in terms of innovating and carrying different devices.”

“There is still plenty of opportunity for innovation, and because of Microsoft’s strong capacity to invest in this area, they are in a strong position to make a good assault on the market. That’s not a guarantee of success, but they’re in a position to make a good impact.”

Kennedy also says the tablet sector won’t be dominated by just one company, confirming both Microsoft and Apple, along with a number of other manufactures, all have a good position to establish.

Also at the conference, Ballmer said the company will continue to heavily invest in its mobile offering, and will be pushing cloud computing in a big way.

“The cloud continues to bring new opportunity,” he said. “The cloud enables us to help our customers streamline their operations and improve their agility.”

“The world of tomorrow is a world of a smart cloud talking to smart devices,” he said, where you can “roam your information across the internet.”

Ballmer also admitted Microsoft “missed the release cycle” for its last round of mobile software, but defended Windows 7 Mobile and said it will power another range of high-end devices.