Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s commander in chief, says we’ll definitely see a Windows tablet by Christmas, ready to tackle the iPad, Android tablets and even the BlackBerry PlayBook. Which do you want stuffed in your stocking this December?
Ballmer, in booming tones (but without the usual whooping and flailing), said at a speech to the London School of Economics today: “as a company we need to cover all form factors…we’ve done work on a windows tablet, and you’ll see slates with Windows on from this Christmas.”
Ballmer the used ‘slate’ instead of tablet. Could this be a hint that the HP slate is back to Windows, after Microsoft was given the heave-ho for WebOS?
Before getting into a Windows tablet range though, Ballmer said that Microsoft had to “get back in the game of phones first,” and cooed “I love my windows phone 7.”
The remainder of Ballmer’s LSE lecture dealt with cloud computing, and while he dodged direct questions about the threat from Google’s Chrome OS, he was open about the question of tablets – Microsoft’s missing form factor.
Got your own questions for Steve Ballmer? He also gave out his e-mail address, so you can drop him a line yourself.
