Nokia planning Windows 8 powered tablet debut in mid-2012

Phone maker Nokia is planning to launch a Windows-running tablet during the summer of 2012, the head of Nokia France said in an interview with a French newspaper.

While the company has not made any formal announcement nor outlined its plans publicly to bring a tablet to the market, his comments suggested the company could be building a tablet to rival existing Android tablets and the holy-of-all-holy, the iPad.

"In June 2012, we will have a tablet that runs on Windows 8", Paul Amsellem said in a telephone interview with the paper. A company spokesperson backtracked, saying: "We have not announced any specific plans as it relates to tablets".

Beyond the Windows 8 mention and the date, there is not so much to go on.

This is not the first hint the consumer market has had that a Windows tablet may be on its way. Earlier this month in an interview with Bloomberg, Nokia's chief executive hinted that competitive devices were on the way, particularly in the U.S. market.

But Nokia's tablet market is somewhat non-existent. It has proven itself in the notebook market with its Nokia Booklet 3G device, a relatively old device compared to the cultural shift of tablets and slate devices on the market today.

A sceptical-me thinks it would make sense for the company to jump on board the tablet market, but the logistics of doing so may not produce a high-quality device in line with some of the more advanced, redesigned and improved-upon tablets already on the market.

As CNET's Stephen Shankland points out, the "synergies aren't always easy", pointing to the applications that are written for one may not be so easily ported over to the other, making the range of devices a headache for the end developer.

Nokia last month unveiled two new Windows Phone powered smartphones in time for the upcoming December holiday season, with the company making clear headway in clawing back the company's dwindling marketshare against Apple and Google.

But those in the industry will know that existing knowledge of building fully touch-screen smartphones only goes so far when moving onto tablets. The architecture is different, the size ratios are off, and far more technology needs to be packed in proportionally less space.

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