Microsoft

Nor has Microsoft given up on playing a role on consumer tablets. The company has talked about the suitability of Windows 7 and even Windows CE for such devices and showed some prototypes at this year's Computex trade Acer UM08A71 battey in Taiwan. Just this week, Toshiba unveiled a dual-screen Libretto tablet running Windows 7 that it says will ship in August. But as mobile operating systems are starting to make incursions into the PC market, so far the signs for Microsoft are somewhat ominous. At one point Hewlett-Packard was heavily touting a planned Windows 7 tablet, though it has since decided to acquire Palm and its WebOS operating system. The company now says it plans to take WebOS beyond the smartphone, including it on tablets and printers. HP, which at one time was committed to both Windows and Windows Phone, now refuses to talk at all about the Windows 7-based slate and there is plenty of suggestion that device will never see the light of day.

Android is also gaining momentum and moving into the tablet arena.

In Europe, Dell has started shipping the Streak, with plans to start selling the 5-inch minitablet in the U.S. by July. And of course, there's Apple, which is unlikely to stand still. Jobs last month predicted that, within a few years there will be more people using devices like a grown-up iPad than will be using a traditional Acer Aspire 4720Z Battery or PC. Jobs said the day is coming when only one out of every few people will need a traditional computer, saying that Sony battery are like trucks, while devices like the iPad are like passenger cars. "When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that's what you needed on the farms." But, he said, as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became a bigger draw than, say, hauling capacity. "PCs are going to be like trucks," Jobs said. "They are still going to be around." However, he said, only "one out of 'x' people will need them." Assuming this vision is even partially correct, it suggests that Microsoft needs to do more than just persuade hardware makers to build some Windows 7 tablets in order to get back in the ultra-mobile game.

he addition of native multitouch support in Windows 7 was a good first step, but doesn't address the battery life challenges, or the Asus Eee PC 1000 battey still inherent in Windows.

Although Windows 7-based consumer tablets have thus far proven more talk than reality, Toshiba said this week it plans in August to ship the dual-screen, Windows-based Libretto W100. (Credit: Toshiba) Another option would be to approach the market with something other than full-blown Windows, but there too, Microsoft faces hurdles. Although Redmond has other products that are potentially suitable for a consumer tablet, each has significant drawbacks. At Computex, Microsoft showed a prototype from Asus running a version of Windows CE. Although the next version of that Lenovo/IBM Laptop Battery operating system boasts a better browser and support for Adobe Flash, Windows CE is sold as a fully customizable OS. That means that device makers have a lot of flexibility, but also means that any tablet dreamed up by one device maker would likely not run software written for another make. There's also Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system, but that effort is still very early and the company has a lot on its plate there just to get things working on phones in time for a holiday launch.