Ballmer Says Microsoft Is 'Hardcore' About Tablets

gbll writes with news that Microsoft is gearing up to aggressively pursue the tablet PC market, according to CEO Steve Ballmer. Microsoft is working with a variety of hardware companies including Asus, Dell, Samsung, Toshiba and Sony, to release Windows 7 slates later this year. "These slates will be available at a variety of price points and in a variety of form factors — with keyboards, touch only, dockable, able to handle digital ink, etc. Since Ballmer showed off a prototype of a Windows 7 slate from Hewlett-Packard at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the company has said next-to-nothing about how it planned to address the slate form-factor space. ... Ballmer never mentioned the iPad or the coming Chrome OS-based slates by name during his remarks. Microsoft’s pitch will be that these slates will be sanctioned by corporate IT departments, enabling customers to use them at work and at home."

Comments

Get ready for....

[the_one_wesp]

Tablets, Tablets, Tablets, Tablets!!!!!

Re:Get ready for....

[tomhudson]

First day: "Hello, Mr. Ballmer and welcome to Microsoft R & D. Windows tablets? Sure - here, take two and call me in the morning!"

Second day: "They didn't work? Sorry, I meant you should use Windows tablets like suppositories. You know the drill."

Third day: "Can't run as fast as you used to? Windows will do that to you."

Fourth day: "Can you feel the PAIN? Remember - no pain, no gain!"

Fifth day: "What do I look like - tech support? Call your next of KIN"

Sixth day: "You can't get it out? We need to reboot you. Bend over - this guy here used to be the kicker for Texas. Will this fix it? No, but you'll now know exactly what it feels like to be a long-term Microsoft customer."

Seventh day: *crickets*

Hardcordz

[Itninja]

Ballmer using words like 'hardcore' makes me feel the same as when my Grampa would talk about 'the Googles' or any other time a male-menapausal coot tries to use 'cool' words to 'relate' to 'todays youth'

If all they do

[Low Ranked Craig]

Is tweak Windows 7 a little bit and replace the mouse with a stylus or the user's finger, this will fail. A tablet needs a UI and OS designed specifically for touch, and applications need to be designed for that OS. I have yet to see anything from Microsoft that indicates to me that they really understand that. No amount of corporate IT agreements will get companies to purchase devices they don't really need.

Re:If all they do

[Anonymous Coward]

That's simply not true. Our company develops applications with multi-touch on Win7 for our internal cloud management platform. Our users love the touch capabilities more than the automation it helps them accomplish on a daily basis. When Win7 tablets start to appear we will already have a head start on this. And to be honest, all we need is any device that can run Silverlight then Win7 wouldn't even be necessary. You are so thinking inside the box.

Posted as AC because my boss would prefer it.

"Hardcore" means something different at MS

[realmolo]

It means "We have dedicated 5 different development and marketing teams to 5 different products that all compete with each other. Each of them has different strengths and weaknesses, each of them is mostly, but not *completely* compatible with the other, and NONE of them will actually be available for sale before Apple or Google makes them completely obsolete. Also, there will be skins available."

Re:It's like watching a swordfighter

[phantomfive]

My ideal world is one that is 1/3 Apple, 1/3 Microsoft, and 1/3 Linux. May not happen, but if any one company gets too powerful it gives us problems.