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Topic: Microsoft

Microsoft to show off true iPad competitors at CES?

Summary: The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may show off some new slates and tablets from various PC partners at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2011 in January.

Mary Jo Foley

By for All About Microsoft |

The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may show off some new slates and tablets from various PC partners at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2011 in January.

Sounds like CES 2010 revisited, doesn't it? Last year, the centerpiece of Ballmer's keynote was an HP slate prototype (that ultimately emerged as a very different looking HP Slate 500 product aimed at business users).

Ballmer has said a lot about Windows slates this year, none of which seems to have impressed Wall Street or many consumers. He said slates are job number one at Microsoft and also said to expect the first "real" Windows-based iPad competitors to arrive some time in 2011, after Intel ships its Oak Trail processors. The Times says that new slates from Samsung and Dell may get some stage time. (Rumors of a Samsung Windows 7 slate were circulating in March of this year.)

The New York Times story throws one new tidbit into the mix, claiming that Ballmer might even show off a tablet running Windows 8 during his keynote.

As we know from a leaked slide deck from April 2010, Microsoft is making sure that Windows 8 will run well on slates.

But it's very early days for Windows 8, which is not expected by many to be released until 2013. Microsoft still has not yet finished its internal Milestone 2 (M2) build, according to my sources. (That is expected to be completed by January or February, I hear.) Then there will be an M3 build (with coding to begin in late February) , and -- some say -- a public beta by Fall 2011. (PDC 2011, maybe?) In short, Windows 8 is not yet approaching the finish line. Or even the beta starting line.

The Windows team has been striving to maintain as much secrecy as possible about Windows 8. So a showing as early as January 2011 would be uncharacteristic and surprising. But it also might silence some of the continued criticism of Microsoft's lack of a true answer to the iPad. So maybe the Windows team will be asked to break the mold... Still, I have to say if Microsoft does show off Windows 8 in January, I will be very surprised....

Topics: Microsoft, iPad, Mobility, Operating Systems, Software, Windows

About

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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61 comments
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  • They can do it.

    If they can make something as powerful as Windows with the MetroUI, they have a winner.
    The one and only, Cylon Centurion
    Reply Vote

    • Fix yer typo dude...

      @Cylon Centurion 0005

      You spelled it wrong... It's not spelled w-i-n-n-e-r...
      i8thecat
      Reply Vote

      • Right, it spelled

        c-h-a-m-p-i-o-n, or s-u-c-c-e-s-s, or ....
        John Zern
        Reply Vote

    • It's more like Intel showing off new ATOM

      How well Win7Pad works out depends on the performance of new ATOM chips only.
      LBiege
      Reply Vote

    • Window is not very powerful, but, it IS bloated. The problem is with the

      bloat, you need more processing power, more memory, and that makes Windows 7 based tablets more expensive and heavier, hotter, less battery life. Why do you think that iPad is so popular?
      DonnieBoy
      Reply Vote

      • A good portion of the iPad's popularity

        comes from Apple. If Microsoft were to release something like the iPad, you would hate it.
        Michael Alan Goff
        Reply Vote

      • That's not even good FUD anymore. Windows is not bloated, nor does it need

        more processing power, nor memory. It will not make tablets more expensive, nor heavier, nor hotter. And it has much better power management than ios or android.

        As far as the ipad being popular, that's because apple has effectively mastered marketing their products as hip to those shallow enough to value that above all else.
        Johnny Vegas
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft to show off true iPad competitors at CES?

        @goff256 and @Johnny Vegas
        I perfectly agree with both of you that iPad ,and even iPhone to some extent, is popular because it is from Apple.
        If it was from any other company people would find that it was too closed and too limited, but as it come from Apple people find that it is the 8th marvel of the world, go figure.
        timiteh
        Reply Vote

      • FUD and you know it.

        @DonnieBoy

        "Window is not very powerful, but, it IS bloated. The problem is with the
        bloat, you need more processing power, more memory, and that makes Windows 7 based tablets more expensive and heavier, hotter, less battery life. Why do you think that iPad is so popular? "

        Tell that to the billions that own Win7 netbooks. They work just fine.
        The one and only, Cylon Centurion
        Reply Vote

      • Guys, extra processing power and memory costs. It sucks more energy causing

        more heat, need for a bigger battery, making the device heavier and hotter, and unless you put a really big battery making it even heavier, less battery life. Also, it requires at a minimum Atom, and say what you want, the mips per watt is much lower than for Arm and costs MORE. Oh, and you have to pay a Windows 7 licence!!!! All of this combined makes it more expensive. A triple whammy.
        DonnieBoy
        Reply Vote

      • Centurion, what do you expect from

        @DonnieBoy, Android tablets were supposed to be the final death blow to MS, instead they just stick with as they did XBox, Kinect, Sharepoint, and take it to market.

        His hopes of Google's world domination shattered, his google colored glasses fading.... :)
        John Zern
        Reply Vote

      • What world are you living on Donnie?

        "Guys, extra processing power and memory costs. It sucks more energy causing
        more heat, need for a bigger battery, making the device heavier and hotter, and unless you put a really big battery making it even heavier, less battery life. Also, it requires at a minimum Atom, and say what you want, the mips per watt is much lower than for Arm and costs MORE. Oh, and you have to pay a Windows 7 licence!!!! All of this combined makes it more expensive. A triple whammy. "


        Seriously, where have you been for like the past 10 years? Since when have laptops become more heavy, and hotter? Same with netbooks and slates? I didn't know they were heavy.
        Those same machines can easily fit 2 GB's of RAM into them and Windows 7 is perfectly capable of running on an Atom.
        The one and only, Cylon Centurion
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft to show off true iPad competitors at CES?

        @Cylon and John - You won't be changing Donnieboy's closed mind. He's so ABM that it's almost comical if it weren't so annoying. You should stop feeding the troll. Really. :)
        PollyProteus
        Reply Vote

      • Polly . . .

        I think they're just poking the monkey with a stick to see how mad he gets . . . .
        JLHenry
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft to show off true iPad competitors at CES?

        @DonnieBoy I'm calling bullsh1t on this:

        [b]Guys, extra processing power and memory costs. It sucks more energy causing
        more heat, need for a bigger battery, making the device heavier and hotter, and unless you put a really big battery making it even heavier, less battery life. Also, it requires at a minimum Atom, and say what you want, the mips per watt is much lower than for Arm and costs MORE. Oh, and you have to pay a Windows 7 licence!!!! All of this combined makes it more expensive. A triple whammy.[/b]

        And this is part of that reason:

        http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/chrome-os-will-the-real-potential-user-please-stand-up/8204

        If you read through the article you come to this close to the end: "[i]...But if the first shipping Chromebooks are priced anywhere near $500 when they hit in mid-2011[/i] $500 bucks?!?!? I can get a Win7 netbook (and yes, paying for that Win 7 license) with similar specs for less than that - for an OS that is supposed to be FREE. Where are the cost savings for a Google OS netbook that requires me to store my data in their cloud (and be subject to them spying on it - Google's privacy track record is not that impressive) vs a Win 7 netbook that gives me the choice to use a cloud service or local storage.
        athynz
        Reply Vote

      • Pitch a new sale, shill

        <i>Tell that to the billions that own Win7 netbooks. They work just fine.</i><br><br>Gee, last I heard the iPad was eating into netbook sales. Go figure.<br><br><a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/06/is-the-ipad-hurting-netbook-sales/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/06/is-the-ipad-hurting-netbook-sales/</a><br><br><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/the-ipad-is-cannibalizing-netbook-sales/10231" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/the-ipad-is-cannibalizing-netbook-sales/10231</a><br><br>Now how come Gavriella Schuster (general manager for Windows product management) can admit that and you can't? <br><br>Hmm?
        search &amp; destroy
        Reply Vote

      • Sorry Guys...

        @goff256, @Johnny Vegas, et al...<br><br>This is no longer FUD or apple fanboyism or whatever. What Apple did was just hit a sweet spot that other manufacturers have failed to even come close to.<br><br>The reason is crystal clear (Jobs even acknowledged it at All Things D). <br><br>They had a patient turtle like ascent, contrasting to the Windows Vista unsuccessful sprint.<br><br>First creating the iPod and the iTunes store. Then they created the iPhone and the App Store. Then they released the MacBooks and the all new battery. Finally they created a cheap, powerful ARM chip which they could mass produce and include in every 'i' device they wanted.<br><br>The problem really isn't Windows at all. To say that it's "bloated" is a lie. Heavy lifting was made on Windows 7 to allow the Windows Vista kernel to return to the sub 1Gb space. Lots of services were turned off, and even the whole kernel project was splitted to remove bloat [aka the MiniWin project]. But with that said, Windows is still a mouse and keyboard OS. Touch is more an after thought and the kernel lacks the real-time extensions to allow near instant app launch (a feature that Apple first tested with Front Row, which MS could have copied with Media Center but didn't or couldn't). Also the OS is fully Display PostScript/PDF rendered. This means *ALL* apps can benefit from "Retina" displays (300 dpi screens in lay terms) not just WPF/Silverlight apps (as is the case with Metro UI).<br><br>So ironically, guys, Microsoft is not in the driver seat anymore with slates, but rather running outside trying to keep pace. iPad 2 can stir the waters even more by having a higher resolution screen, 1Gb integrated RAM and even a HDMI or displayport dock extension and all MS OEM will scramble again to catch up.<br><br>Am sorry to tell you, but don't think Ballmer can show anything that won't get dumped at the end like the HP Slate 500 (not by the users but by the OEMs, who were bribed to show "upcoming products")
        cosuna
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft to show off true iPad competitors at CES?

      @Cylon Centurion 0005 The Metro UI is really not that impressive - I was not very impressed when I used it at my local AT&T store... I do hope that MS does come up with a decent transition to a tablet-based device - the iPad needs competition and Android just is not there yet.
      athynz
      Reply Vote

      • They would adapt it

        @athynz

        I agree that the tiles wouldn't look so good on the bigger screen, but if you do a quick search, there are plenty of appealing mock-ups that would show what a possible Metro tablet would look like.
        The one and only, Cylon Centurion
        Reply Vote

    • Windows 7 Tablet Edition

      @Cylon Centurion 0005 - W7TE will likely be on these slates at CES - Win7 with tablet focused UI replacing taskbar interface
      archangel9999
      Reply Vote
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