New Windows for Tablets to be Shown This Week

By Marcus Yam
published

Will it use a variant of Windows Phone 7?

According to Bloomberg sources, Microsoft this week will be previewing a version of Windows that is optimized for tablet devices.

The timing this week seems appropriate, as it will coincide with the All Things D in California as well as Computex in Taiwan. With the inevitable onslaught of new tablet designs to debut at the Taipei computer show, it is due time for Microsoft to show its answer to Apple's iOS and Google's Android Honeycomb.

Bloomberg believes that Windows President Steven Sinofsky will be giving the demo at All Things D, while Vice President Steve Guggenheimer will handle the show at Computex.

While Apple and Google already have tablets on the market, Microsoft's tablet Windows version won't be out until next year.

On the hardware side, Nvidia was chosen as the platform's chipmaker, who has been making inroads on the tablet market with its Tegra 2 chipset.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • joytech22
    Now this is getting interesting.
    It makes me wonder how it will run on these devices, what kind of applications there will be and how they will run on a mobile platform.
    Reply
  • volks1470
    This is what they said microsoft needed to get a good handle on the tablet market. hopefully it should prove to add more productivity to the tablet space that will make a keyboard dock very useful. Who knows...mouse input?
    Reply
  • fyasko
    MS fail left and right... if they don't come up with a mobile platform soon they will be SOL.
    Reply
  • c0oim4n
    fyaskoMS fail left and right... if they don't come up with a mobile platform soon they will be SOL.They DO have a mobile platform, they just havn't used it as well as it could. Look at Win7; great touch-screen capability, and is able to run in low-power environments quite well, but is limited to x86. On the other hand, if you look at WP7; It's great for phones, and possibly tablets, but is limited to ARM, and Microsoft has very specific minimum specifications (like the 2-stage camera button, etc.).
    Reply
  • nforce4max
    Great so is it like vista/win7 light or is it more like xp and uses almost no resources?
    Reply
  • plznote
    In 2012:
    Jobs: iOS 5 has 400,000 apps!
    Brin: Android has 450,000 apps!!
    Ballmer: Windows 8 has 9,999,999,999,999 apps.
    Reply
  • JOSHSKORN
    Windows belongs on the PC, not a mobile device. I soon found that out after purchasing my Omnia a couple years ago. I can't wait until a decent Android is released (DROID BIONIC, maybe?). That's my next phone. Screw everything else.

    Having that said, I haven't seen a whole lot of Windows Mobile 7. From what I've seen, it looks like a bunch of big blocks. Not interested.
    Reply
  • alidan
    plznoteIn 2012:Jobs: iOS 5 has 400,000 apps!Brin: Android has 450,000 apps!!Ballmer: Windows 8 has 9,999,999,999,999 apps.
    ios has 400k apps
    android has 450k apps
    win a has
    Reply
  • alidan
    alidanios has 400k appsandroid has 450k appswin a haso yay something got cought up in a word filter

    plznoteIn 2012:Jobs: iOS 5 has 400,000 apps!Brin: Android has 450,000 apps!!Ballmer: Windows 8 has 9,999,999,999,999 apps.
    ios has 400k apps
    android has 450k apps
    win8 a has less than 400k apps but has real @!#%ing programs instead, not 100 apps dedicated to making farting noises, thats what flash is for.
    Reply
  • fir_ser
    This June in general is an interesting month to follow tech, and more particular Computex.
    Reply