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back to article Microsoft plans June Windows 8 tablet tease?

Microsoft is planning a mid-year show-and-tell of its planned Windows 8 design for tablets, according to a report citing sources inside the company. Business Insider reports that Microsoft will show off the new tablet-happy Windows by the end of its fiscal year in June. Window 8 for tablets will use concepts from the Windows …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    Step 1. Start you engines

    The MS Fud machine begineth its work to FUD up the whole Tablet/Slate market.

    Nice timing isn't it. Just a few days before the iPad-2 announcement. A good spoiler.

    It is a real pity that at least a few of those Android Tablets are not readily available. Their window of opportunity is IMHO closing fast if MS is actually telling the truth (50/50)

    I'd really like to get my hands on a decent 10in Tablet running Android that actually costs LESS than an iPad. Is this too much to ask.

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    1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Advent Vega

      10" tablet, Android 2.2, very nicely specified, £249 from PC World. So, no, it isn't too much to ask.

      Also the Galaxy Tab is available for not a lot over £400 if you look around, so also less than an iPad, albeit not by much.

      GJC

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  2. blodwyn

    Tough hill to climb

    This means the first release will be almost 2 years later than iPad, and one year later than Honeycomb, both of which have a huge lead on apps. And by then RIM and HP should have shipped their first tablets. Should be interesting to watch.

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  3. Mikel
    Stop

    Apple releases products

    Tomorrow there is a new iPad. Where's the Apple preview? Nowhere but a single event invite. When they show it, it will be made and ready to buy.

    And yet here, years before potential release, is a Microsoft tease about yet another tablet product that may never see the light of day - which, in fact, cannot contain technology contemporary with the software that is itself over a year from release. Such is the pace of progress in mobile.

    Why not just rerun previews from the 2010 CES keynote? We haven't seen those products yet either.

    Microsoft teases. Apple delivers.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Hardly true...

      iPhone announced early Jan 2007, wasn't available until late June 2007.

      iPad announced Jan 2010, wasn't available until April 2010.

      Whilst updates to these devices (e.g. 3G, 3GS, 4) were available in shorter periods, the launch of truly new devices (e.g. first of the kind) took much longer.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        much longer?

        3 months? You're moaning about 3 months?

        MS will be lucky to ship in 2 years if their past exploits are anything to go by.

        4 0
  4. Goat Jam
    FAIL

    Eight?

    "Google's operating system is pegged to land on eight fondlelabs from Dell during the coming 12 months."

    Dell really have no clue. How on earth they think designing, building and supporting eight different tablets is a good thing completely eludes me.

    Two or three is more than enough choice to offer your customers. Any more will just lead to confusion. Which one do I need? What is the difference between this one and this one? It's just stupid.

    Apple have the right idea, produce a limited number of models and just make sure they are good. They have one phone and one tablet.

    An argument could be made that two of each would be appropriate, maybe a 7 inch pad and the mythical iphone nano but that would be it.

    Making 8 tablets is plain retarded. How can you even differentiate 8 tablets anyway? Go from 7 to 10 inches in half inch increments?

    I just don't get it.

    4 2
    1. Mark 65
      Reply Icon

      Re:Eight?

      "Apple have the right idea, produce a limited number of models and just make sure they are good. They have one phone and one tablet."

      Except they don't. You can get 16,32, and 64GB iPads with or without 3G. Technically 6 models. Same for the iPhone with the 3GS still available in 8GB size. Maybe Dell is just making an extra memory variant, maybe not?

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  5. Mark 65

    Microsoft

    I think the competition in the OS space from Apple's iOS and OSX and Google's Android (along with improvements in Linux distros) has been fantastic for the end user as it has finally provided a mighty size 11 boot up the arse of MS and forced them to actually produce some decent stuff - I'm no fanboy but I think Windows 7 hits the mark. It's not perfect but it's much appreciated.

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  6. Don Mitchell

    Finally

    I have to wonder why Microsoft killed its eBook table project ten years ago, or why they didn't capitalize more on Kurlander's pioneering work on touch interfaces for the "Surface" project (basically all the concepts of the iPhone on a table-top display). It's not that they lack the talent or brain power, they lack the guts at the executive level to take risks.

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    1. Greg J Preece
      Reply Icon

      Agreed

      I thought Surface was a fantastic looking thing, and then nothing whatsoever came of it except a bit of cheesy product placement in CSI.

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  7. IT specialist
    FAIL

    Move on. There's nothing to see here

    As usual, Microsoft is showing off tablets again, but there's nothing ready for release.

    Competitor Apple will also show off the iPad 2 tablet, but the difference is that it will hit the market immediately, rather than in 2 years.

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    1. Owen B
      Reply Icon

      Hmm...

      I thought "immediately" meant straight away, but appearently it means "in 6 months".

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        @Owen

        6 months / 3 months / whatever. Being a little picky?

        You're comparing with a company that routinely uses vapourware to scare / effect markets.

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  8. Richard Plinston

    VaporWare in the twentytens

    Microsoft has used vaporware as a weapon against competition for decades. In 1983 when DRI demonstrated the GEM GUI at COMDEX MS announced that it will release a GUI 'any day now'. Nearly 2 years later they had written Windows 1 but meanwhile TopView and GEM sales were hampered by the 'wait for MS' syndrome.

    This has kept Microsoft in control of the market for many years. When computers were expensive and decisions were made over many months, when hardware was expected to last many years, vaporware stopped decisions being made.

    Now with mobile: smart phones and tablets; buying decisions are made in minutes, or possibly days. MS's announcements that they will show something in 6 months and it will be available next year will have no effect on the market. They will buy stuff now and if the MS stuff is really any good they might buy it then, or not.

    Zune was what the iPod had been for some time. WP7 eventually caught up the the iPhone of 2 years ago. Nokia's WP7 next year might catch up to Androids available now. WP8 Tablets will be what iPads and Linux (including Android) tablets are already.

    No one is going to wait for Microsoft anymore, except perhaps a small number of dedicated BillyG worshipers.

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  9. Arctic fox
    Headmaster

    re Move on. There's nothing to see here.

    "Competitor Apple will also show off the iPad 2 tablet, but the difference is that it will hit the market immediately, rather than in 2 years"

    Except that it is looking increasingly likely that any customer who is pleased with his/her iPad 1 would be very well advised to wait for the iPad 3 before upgrading. Especially given that the kit is not exactly cheap. In other words it is not unlikely that for all iPad customers with more sense than money (rather than the reverse) purchase of the iPad 2 would be rather pointless. Kit there is no point in buying is as much vapourware (to all practical intents and purposes) as kit that never gets released from the point of view of said customers, hmm?

    0 1
    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      but a lot of people

      buy all sorts of kit for no better reason than that it is the newest. Whilst a more rational approach is better for your wallet, people wanting the latest do keep the economy ticking over, and lead to a supply of good s/h stuff which us cheapskates can snap up ;-)

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      1. The BigYin
        Reply Icon

        @Michael

        I hear yah! Classic xBoxes are dirt cheap and still usable these days. They make a decent (non-HD) media extender plus a fun game is still, well, fun!

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      @Arctic Fox

      So... the ipad 2 spec - which hasn't been released yet - isn't good enough of an upgrade so it's not worth buying?

      What? Nice use of logic there.

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  10. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Happy

    On the Merry-Go-Round again!

    Didn't Steve "DelBoy" Ballmer do a big thing about HP tablets about 3 years ago and nothing came of it? Meanwhile everyone else is busy dumping MS O/S's in favour of just getting something to market before they get trounced by Apple again!

    When is the MS FUD machine going to be upgraded to actually have a slim element of fact in amongst the vapourware? Can't say I really want a tablet, but props to Apple for saying they will do something and bloody well doing it, unlike MS!

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  11. The BigYin

    8?

    Is this going to be the one with the floaty-circles?

    Really people, it's time to get a clue.

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  12. Avatar of They
    Thumb Down

    Not this story again, M$ to release a tablet... in the future. Honest.

    It's M$ which means it will need to run anti virus, which means the small portable and light weight machine will be drained of power by AV software chewing up the CPU, and you will be lumbered with whatever crudware M$ develop for it if WP7 is their business model.

    It will probably come with 16GB free (bearing in mind the other 250 GB is filled with the OS) and knowing M$ most software will need an optical drive to be plugged in and run on install.

    It won't be the Android or Apple beater.

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  13. Bilgepipe
    FAIL

    *sniff*

    What's that smell? Oh, it's more of Microsoft's vaporware.

    Fail because no-one wants full Windows on a 10" tablet.

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    1. hplasm
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      That smell?

      It's the Dell Peju. Pe-yoooo!

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    no-one cares about the OS

    it's the Apps that make or break a slate/tablet...

    compare the Apple Mail app on an iPad to Outlook on a Win7 touch device and there's no question which one is easier to use ... better suited to the task.

    Until MS realise that you need to lead with optimised apps for the platform they will remain at zero relevance no matter how much innovation they stuff into the underlying OS

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  15. N2

    Its time

    To start sowing the seeds of nagging doubt, that Windows 7 isn't quite what you wanted but Windows 8 really is the answer - or at least until Windows 9 arrives.

    Just like last time, Yawn

    Still using '2000 & doing a fine job.

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  16. Mark .

    "Microsoft are doomed."

    It is rather short-sighted to say that MS have no chance, because Apple were there first. Apple entered the phone market late, and whilst they have lost compared to Android and Nokia, they still sell enough to make a profit. Furthermore, Android itself came even later.

    Apple themselves were far from first in the mobile computing market, with plenty of keyboardless (Archos and Nokia tablets) and keyboard devices (netbooks) predating anything from Apple.

    Windows is already dominant on netbooks. It's unclear why everything should be different just for devices without a physical keyboard.

    0 1
    1. Arctic fox
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      @Mark. re. ""Microsoft are doomed""

      Quite frankly I think many of those who post the kind of "contribution" that so often involves spelling MS' using a dollar sign are expressing what they hope will happen rather than that which they believe *will* happen. There are of course in relation to any future for MS in tablets several imponderables.

      1. Will Win8 per se be an advance on Win7 or will it get "Vistaed"?

      2. Will the Win8 port to ARM architecture be successful from the technical point of view?

      3. Will the UI be any good?

      4. Will the compiling of such packages as Office for ARM be successful?

      5. Will the devs produce genuinely good apps that run well on the os?

      6. Will the OEMs produce genuinely good, attractive and sensibly priced kit to run it on?

      All these questions are wholly legitimate and non-contrived issues for debate (they are of course the types of challenges that face all major software/hardware companies). However a fairly significant proportion of the postings we see are absolutely uninterested in the *possibility* that the answers to the above questions might, just might, be yes. The reason is of course very simple, they *want* the answers to be "no" because *IF* the answers are "yes" MS is likely (because of its brand recognition in the market place amongst a large number of ordinary punters) to have a major success on its hands. Given that I neither have an axe to grind nor a crystal ball I have no certain idea what the answers to the above questions will *actually* turn out to be although I am certainly interested in what they *might* turn out to be. We see the same phenomenon being directed at Nokia in other threads from the same "M$"haters/obsessives, they *want* it to go as wrong as possible for the "team(s)" they hate - rational debate about what may go right *or* wrong in this area is not something they have any interest in.

      For the record: We run both Win7 and Ubuntu at home and I use a Mac at work, Mm Arctic Fox runs an N8 and I have a Desire Z.

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  17. thecakeis(not)alie

    Winwhat?

    Microwho?

    Didn't they used to be important way back when? Something about servers and old-fashioned computers you didn't carry with you. Whatever happened to them, anyways? Oh, tube's arrived. GTG, bai!

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