Microsoft to hit back at Apple with tablet

While the rest of the world races ahead with the tablet concept (why, even our very own Minister for Human Resource Development — Kapil Sibal — announced one last week), the folks at Redmond, Washington are just not able to get theirs off the ground. The Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, said on Thursday at a meeting of analysts that his company is planning to launch a rival to Apple’s iPad.

This may be a little late in the day — Apple has already sold 3.3 million iPads worldwide and if e- readers were the primary killer app for a tablet, then Amazon, with its latest Kindle 3, will emerge as the leading player in the market anyway.

“ They’ll be shipping as soon as they're ready,” Bill Gates’ chosen successor said. “ This is Job 1 around here. Nobody is sleeping at the switch.” But he said he would not be able to do it “ today”. “ I wish I could hold up a couple ( of tablets) for you today. It's not today. I relish having to do it tomorrow.” The problem with Microsoft has been that it was never clear about what it wants to do with the Tablet concept.

It had an ongoing project on these lines, which it shelved some time back giving the impression that the world’s largest software company is not willing to go the whole nine yards on tablets.

Microsoft has missed the bus on various occasions under the leadership of Steve Ballmer.

It lost the race to Apple on the personal entertainment device ( Microsoft’s Zune is almost unheard of, while Apple’s iPod is ubiquitous); it hit a self goal with Windows Vista and now with the tablet concept just not taking off, Microsoft seems directionless.