Microsoft To Break Back Into Tablet Market Next Week [REPORT]

Microsoft is planning to show off a version of its Windows 8 designed for tablet PCs next week, according to a report.

Bloomberg says that Windows President Steven Sinofsky will present a version of the software with a touchscreen interface at the All Things D conference next week. The software will be running on a tablet based on Nvidia’s Tegra chip. The new operating system isn’t expected to be out until next year.

 

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Rumors about a new Microsoft tablet have been floating around for some time. In February, Business Insider reported that Microsoft planned to showcase a version of Windows 8 for tablets in June. According to the report, Microsoft is taking a more Apple-like approach to interface design by using the Metro interface developed for Windows Phone 7.

The effort comes after two Microsoft misfires in the tablet market. There was the 2010 debut of the “slate PC,” a model running Windows 7 and Amazon’s Kindle software, which has been compared to a stripped-down PC lacking a keyboard. And long before that came the Tablet PC, first unveiled by Bill Gates at Comdex in 2000. The Tablet PC was a laptop with a rotating screen and stylus functionality.

Meanwhile, Microsoft recently reported weak consumer PC sales partially because of the surge in sales for Apple’s iPad and iPad 2. To spur PC sales among students, Microsoft is now offering a free Xbox for those who buy a PC costing $699 and up from participating retailers. Despite Microsoft’s relatively late entry to the tablet market, at least one analyst, Citigroup, predicts Microsoft can corner a large share of the market in 2013 and beyond.