Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced several new tablet computers at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington DC yesterday. Those new tablet computers will run Windows 7. Asus, Dell, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba are all developing tablets to be released this year.
Although I say tablets, Steve Ballmer says slates:
This year, one of the most important things that we will do in the smart device category is really push forward with Windows 7-based slates. This is a terribly important area for us.
The slates will come in a variety of form factors: some slates will have keyboards, others will be touch only, dockable, able to handle digital ink, etc. That means the slates will also be offered at different price points.
Oe manufacturer is missing from the list: HP. The planned to release a HP Slate, demonstrated last January at the CES 2010 keynote from Ballmer. But HP has bought Palm and webOS and is now planning to develop and release tablets and other devices based on webOS.
