Success of Microsoft's Tablet PC not written in stone

By CHARLES ARTHUR

It could be Bill Gates' biggest gamble yet: after 25 years, the computer company that has resolutely refused to make computers is going to do just that - and with a design that has failed in the past.

Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, 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. Users will either write with a special stylus or speak to the computer, which will have built-in voice recognition.

Both technologies have failed in the market, but Microsoft is betting that this time they will work. And the company thinks design-keen computer buyers will be willing to stump up as much as $US3000 ($7330) for a machine that weighs just 1.1kg - far less than the average laptop.

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."

Mr Gates says the Tablet PC will have the power of standard laptops - including a 500MHz processor, 128Mb 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 Microsoft's first venture into making PCs will thrive.

"It might take a chunk of the market for laptops," said Martin Jones, head of device research for Volantis Systems, a British firm 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 design failures that have tried to incorporate handwriting recognition or tablet designs.

The Tablet, though, was intended to be "the ultimate evolution of the laptop," said 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.

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

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

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

But that, plus its price tag - considerably steeper than a standard laptop, and the Tablet will apparently have 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 that sounds great but never takes off."

It is even possible that Bill Gates will decide not to go ahead with the Tablet. That, after all, is what happened in 1988 when Microsoft said it would produce "Pen Windows" - a tablet-style competitor to Mr Kaplan's GO project.

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 of ideas that seemed so good at the time.

- INDEPENDENT