detonate.net - Microsoft To Eliminate Paper and Pen, New Tablet

Never lacking for ambition in its quest for new markets, Microsoft Corp. is taking aim on what many consider a relatively secure redoubt from the march of technology: pen and paper.

After years of hype and promises, more than a dozen computer makers today will begin selling portable computers featuring Microsoft's tablet software, which allows users to enter text with keyboards or a stylus similar to those for hand-held organizers from Palm Inc. and others.

Previous attempts at pen-based computing wiped out smaller Silicon Valley firms and helped lead to the ouster of Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive John Sculley, who backed the ill-fated Newton.

But Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has made the Tablet a pet project, pouring $400 million into research and development and pledging another $70 million on marketing.

"I'm personally thrilled to see that product get into the market," Gates said. "Over the next three to four years, a high percentage of portables will be tablets."

If tablet products by Hewlett-Packard Co., Acer Inc., Toshiba, Fujitsu and others do succeed, it will be in part because Microsoft has scaled down its hopes.

The handwriting recognition, while better than those in tablet's precursors, works for only about half of the population, by Microsoft's estimates.

So the software giant recommended that its hardware partners include a keyboard. Some models, including HP's, detach from that keyboard. Others fold the keyboard under the screen, turning the machine into a slim slate.

The computers also let users skip handwriting recognition and store their handwritten jottings as they appear, either by themselves or as annotations to typed documents.

Computer makers are charging between about $1,700 and $2,400 for the tablet products and see them as a niche within the existing market for the high-end notebook machines favored by meeting-bound executives and mobile professionals.

"Long-term, we think they will settle at 10[%] to 20% of total volume" for personal computers, said HP Senior Vice President Jim McDonnell.

Others are less sanguine: Gartner Inc. researchers projected Wednesday that tablets will account for just 1.2% of notebook shipments in 2003.

"Lack of application support, clumsy hardware designs and a price premium will be barriers for most users," said Gartner Vice President Ken Dulaney.

Wall Street firms likewise expect negligible impact on Microsoft's earnings. "I personally like it, but I'm a geek," said Charles Di Bona, a Sanford C. Bernstein analyst.

Tablets could benefit from the increasing availability of wireless Internet access, according to other analysts and Gates, who uses an Acer one.

"For college students, it's a very attractive product," Gates said. "Then again, it's very attractive for me -- when I'm sitting in a meeting, I want to be able to look at my schedule, browse the Web and take notes."

cheerfully lifted from the LA Times!