Hi Rick,

There has to be a reason that Android tablets haven't taken off. Pricing has to be a factor. Look what happened with the TouchPad when it was $99. I agree, it won't be easy to bring the price down significantly. Microsoft and their hardware partners need to be prepared to stay in the market for a long time if they don't compete on price because it will take signficant time for consumers to see the advantage of one UI across all devices. I agree with you on that point. As a developer, it makes my life easier. As a consumer, I don't have to learn multiple UIs. Again, easier.



>I don't think that's going to happen mainly because Apple has actually been reasonably priced in this space. Most competitors - even the asian 'cheapo' brands - today aren't bringing out Android tablets that are cheaper which is very telling.
>
>>IMO, Windows can become the number 2 tablet, but if they don't do EVERYTHING differntly, it will be just another competitor, mired among the Android tablets that aren't doing anything.
>
>Not so sure about that. While it may very well be that the tablet specific features will not be the hot thing that Microsoft expects but Windows 8 as a whole is likely to be a winner with a refined and more tuned version of Windows 7 for the desktop. The tablet stuff will be a bonus IMHO and one that might eventually sway people in the direction of a Windows tablet.
>
>Personally to me the compelling story is:
>
>* One device that I can use to both run in tablet mode and do a reasonable amount of desktop work for hte near term. Note a notebook replacement for heavy duty work yet, but something that at least allows running all of the stuff that you run on your computer in addition to the glossy tablet platform.
>
>iPads/Tablets current are cute but they're not meant to replace notebooks and they simply can't do everything. Even when it comes to social media applications they are lacking (think about iPAd has no IO ports for getting content into it to publish for example.
>
>I think the compelling Windows 8 story is that it will one platform that does both. I wouldn't be surprised if future versions of MacOS will do the same. They'll have to or be lost in the shuffle. I think that's where we're heading and frankly that should have ALWAYS been the target. iPad is just an intermediate stop along the way.
>
>With demand for tablets will come better hardware that can handle the performance and battery requirements for both.
>
>+++ Rick ---