Microsoft gambles on success of 'Tablet PC'

By CHARLES ARTHUR

Bill Gates may be taking his biggest gamble yet: after 25 years, the computer company that has resolutely refused to make computers is jumping into exactly that arena ­and, more dangerously, with a design that has failed in the past.

Microsoft, the world's biggest software giant, intends next year to start selling its own "Tablet PC", a slate-like machine that will consist almost solely of a flat screen and no keyboard.

Getting information into it will require users either to write, with a special stylus, or to speak to the computer, which also will have built-in voice recognition.

Both are technologies that in the past have failed in the market ­ but Microsoft is betting they will work this time.

Not only that, but that design-keen computer buyers will be willing to stump up as much as $US3,000 ($NZ7,300) for a machine weighing just 1.1kg, far less than the average laptop ­even if, on the face of it, the Tablet is harder to use and costs twice as much.

Mr Gates, the chairman and chief software architect at Microsoft, is enthusiastic.

"We just finished some of the prototypes of that device, and I have to say there's been more fighting over who gets to use those prototypes than any new thing that we've ever done. I think that's a good sign," he told an audience at the trade show Comdex, where he displayed some of those prototypes in March.

Mr Gates says that the Tablet PC will have the power of today's standard laptop computers ­ including a 500MHz processor, 128 Mb of memory, a 10 gigabyte hard drive, colour screen, detachable keyboard and mouse, and perhaps a wireless link to outside networks.

But others are not so sure that Microsoft's first venture into making PCs ­ a notoriously cut-throat market, with a general intolerance of new designs ­ will thrive.

"It might take a chunk of the market for laptops," said Martin Jones, head of device research for Volantis Systems, a British company that writes the controlling software for next-generation internet and computer designs.

"But it will still be easier to write using a keyboard, so it won't take over the notebook market."

Others point to past design failures which have tried to incorporate handwriting recognition or tablet designs.

The Tablet, though, is intended to be "the ultimate evolution of the laptop", according to Mr Gates, who suggested that users would take it to meetings and scrawl notes on it, or "dock" it into systems where they could use its full range of features.

But Jerry Kaplan, founder of GO Corporation, ­which in 1988 showed a prototype of its pen-based machine to Mr Gates, felt that the machine would fail.

"It's likely to be both a compromised laptop, and a compromised pen machine," he said.

And even Microsoft acknowledges that the handwriting recognition will not be the key selling point of the machine. Instead, it suggests that the tablet will be a marvellous way to store handwritten notes.

That, plus its price tag ­ considerably steeper than a standard laptop, and apparently with less of the functionality ­ could turn out to be its Achilles' heel.

"I'm sure that a wireless keyboard will be a standard add-on if this takes off," said Mr Jones. "But it might turn out to be another idea which sounds great but never takes off."

Clive Grunyer, director of design and innovation at Britain's Design Council, is more generous about the product's prospects. "In terms of mobility, laptops still need you to lug them around and turn them on, which takes an age."

But there are still questions over the Tablet: if it is launched into a recession, it could flop badly despite being a winning design.

Exactly that problem killed off the Audrey internet "appliance" and the Kerbango, an internet "radio", both made by 3Com. When the company's finances hit choppy water earlier this year it scrapped the division that had made the products.

The Audrey was a device that could be used in any room in the house, and would offer a simple interface for e-mail and Web browsing.

"Its $US400 ($NZ970) price might have been a bit high," said Mr Jones. "But with these things it's chicken and egg. If you can make and sell a lot, the price comes down."

The Kerbango, which could be "tuned" to radio stations broadcasting over the Net, was popular in America before being axed. "Maybe that was a bit too early ­ you need high-speed connections to really make that work," Mr Jones said.

For Mr Gates, such lessons from computing history will have been readily absorbed. It is even possible that he will decide not to go ahead with the Tablet at all.

That, after all, is what happened in 1988, when Microsoft announced that it would produce "Pen Windows" ­ a tablet-style competitor to Mr Kaplan's GO project.

And what happened to Pen Windows? Some software was produced in April 1992 but, since then, it has been virtually invisible.

And if it is the software being incorporated into the Tablet PC ­ which Microsoft itself says will not be perfect ­ then one has to wonder whether that machine will join the graveyard full of ideas that seemed such a good at the time.

- INDEPENDENT