Tablet PC could be revolutionary

By PETER GRIFFIN IT writer

Science fiction movies and a wooden model presented to Bill Gates provided the inspiration for Microsoft's newest bid to revolutionise the computing world - the Tablet PC.

A collection of laptop vendors on Friday will launch their versions of the Tablet PC - a virtual clipboard running software based on Microsoft's Windows XP platform that allows you to scribble notes in digital ink and save pages of longhand notes on a laptop's hard drive.

In New Zealand to spread the Tablet PC gospel and catch up with former boss and Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, Microsoft's vice-president of technology, Dick Brass, said the arrival of low-powered LCD screens, cheaper and more compact memory and accurate handwriting recognition software had only now made the tablet PC possible.

"Since the 1970s hundreds of companies have tried to make this dream work. But the public all along has been saying 'not yet'."

Microsoft has taken a stab at bringing pen-based computing to the masses before, when it released Windows for Pen Computing in the early 90s. The software adapted the Windows 3.11 operating system for pen-based text input but it failed to take off.

While manufacturers including Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Acer and ViewSonic will release the Tablet PC, major PC vendors Dell and IBM will not.

"Dell is interested in high-volume markets. If this is successful, you'll see Dell tablets in the market. That goes for IBM too," Brass said.

"It's natural to be concerned about success in an industry that has seen so much failure."

Hundreds of developers were building applications to run on the tablet PC but so far third-party vendors had been slow to lend their support. SAP and Corel, however, would issue tablet PC-ready software.

The tablet PC supports just a handful of languages, which will likely hinder its take-up.

Brass said the tablet PC would likely hurt sales of personal digital assistants (PDAs), a market Microsoft also plays in with its Pocket PC software.

"It will eat into the traditional PDA market. But nothing ever dies, it just stops selling as well."

The use of tablets in sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet and various episodes of Star Trek had given Brass ideas for the tablet. A wooden mock-up of a concept Tablet PC Brass had made in 1997 also stimulated interest in Microsoft.

"I brought Bill Gates a wooden model of a tablet a boat carpenter built for $2000. Bill said that's what he'd always wanted."

Brass' next pet project will be to develop software for the tablet PC that will allow magazine and newspaper publishers to issue electronic versions of their publications which could be downloaded to it.

If international prices are anything to go by, the tablet PC will be expensive, although Brass said they would sell for "a few hundred dollars" more than regular light-weight laptops. Acer's tablet PC will sell locally for $4995 plus GST.

The full line-up of tablet PC models that will be sold locally and pricing details will be released on Friday.