The devices, which look to come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, will be powered by both Intel and Transmeta microprocessors and will be manufactured initially by Acer, Compaq, Fujitsu, Sony and Toshiba. A full-function, slate-like computer, the Tablet will feature the newly announced Windows XP operating system and will take advantage of pen-based input in the form of digital ink.

"The Tablet PC will be an even more important advance for PCs than notebook computers were," Gates boldly predicted. "It combines the simplicity of paper with the power of the PC." That simplicity was chief among the chief software architect's goals for the device, abandoning the traditional keyboard and mouse for the more ergonomic pen.

Perhaps due to the recent fallout in "information appliance" commercial viability, with both 3Com and Gateway pulling products from both road maps and shelves, Microsoft stresses that the Tablet PC would not fit under such a label.

"This is not a companion, it's a real PC; it has all of the power and ability of a desktop system, and maybe in the future will come to replace laptops," said Dick Brass, vice president of emerging technologies for Microsoft. Citing Apple Computer's Newton, an ambitious precursor to many PDA-like devices, Brass said that a 2002 target date for system availability may be a little aggressive.

"Because of our respect for those who came before us, we're being cautious," said Brass, adding that about 40 early systems have been shipped as a "controlled experiment."

Fujitsu, one of the OEMs who will produce the device, knows all too well the type of industry collaboration necessary to enable broad adoption of such a device. In 1991, the company produced an early PDA known as the Pocket Pad, which, like the Newton, suffered setbacks. "So far, the tablet market has been limited to the vertical marketplace, but to take a product like this into the mainstream really requires an industry-wide effort," said Tom Bernhard, director of strategic product planning for Fujitsu PC Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.)

Form factors, price points and features for Tablet PC devices will be left up to the OEM, with the only unbending stipulation that the device is a full-function PC. Flextronics has and will continue to serve as contract manufacturer for the device.

Multiple mobile MPUs

Transmeta has been working with Microsoft over the past year on developing the Tablet PC, according to Ed McKernan, director of product development. Despite, or because of, the PC's recent consumer decline, McKernan said the timing couldn't be better.

"Given the current state of the PC industry, it seems critical to think of new ways of expanding the market," he said. "Many of the [Tablet PC's] components are leveraged off of the notebook platform, but improvements are on the way. We can see a way of reducing power consumption by half by the second part of this year," he added.

Transmeta's presence at a press conference immediately following the keynote underscored the lack of Intel representation there. While the Tablet PC may prove to be a huge design win for the X86-compatible Crusoe, Intel's presence in the mix complicates the issue, analysts said, while expressing dismay at Transmeta's involvement at all.

"Transmeta's role in this is vastly overstated," said Nathan Brookwood, president of market research firm Insight64 (Saratoga, Calif.) "There's nothing in the basic notion of the Tablet PC that needs Transmeta, beyond that the Tablet PC needs to be X86-compatible."

Peter Glaskowsky, a senior analyst for MicroDesign Resources, agreed with Brookwood's assessment and sees Transmeta's involvement in the Tablet PC more as an extension of its post-IPO marketing activities than anything.

"Transmeta has brought a lot of attention to the concept of low-power laptops and MPU design, and it has been able to get a lot of publicity, but its products are not terribly impressive," he opined. "Intel is there basically because it's Intel, because it currently has the best mobile processors on the market."

Both analysts see initial Tablet PC designs being powered by an 800-MHz-and-above mobile Pentium III chip. Though the target date for these systems is being loosely defined by Microsoft as 2002, a mobile Pentium 4 chip wouldn't make sense at first, Glaskowsky said. "The Pentium III is a much more efficient design for laptops than the Pentium 4 will ever be," he said.