Tablet PC Launches With Style
"By the end of a decade we'll look back and say, 'Was there ever a time where computing didn't involve having these types of applications and this kind of accessibility to information,'" said Gates during a presentation at Manhattan's Ambassador Theatre in which he officially announced the launch of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. "It's just a start, but it's a start that's going to build based on the word of mouth of end-users."
Amy Tan, author of "The Joy Luck Club," spoke about how using a Tablet PC has changed the way she writes, making it much easier for her to trade comments and edit notes back and forth with her editor. Actor Rob Lowe of TV's "The West Wing" also took the stage for a few moments to show how he uses his Tablet PC to read and annotate his scripts.
On the technology side, Gates was joined on stage by a number of hardware execs, including HP president and CEO Carly Fiorina, who spoke about how the Tablet PC will create an entirely new type of mobile worker and offer technology companies a new way to sell solutions. Jeff Raikes, Microsoft group vice president of productivity and business services, expounded on that theme, speaking about the evolving role of information workers and how the introduction of Tablet PC computing will turn more "regular workers into knowledge workers."
Microsoft also showed a number of video presentations in which companies including EDS, SAP and Merck demonstrated how the Tablet PC has made workers more productive and processes more efficient.
Across the street from the official launch announcement, inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Microsoft set up a partner pavilion where a variety of hardware and software companies demonstrated solutions they have already built using the Tablet PC platform. In addition to the existing vendor partners like HP, Fujitsu, Acer, NEC, Toshiba, ViewSonic and Motion Computing, Gates announced that other technology companies like Siebel, Samsung and Panasonic have signed on to build products on the Tablet PC platform.
"An amazing job was done by our hardware partners to get all of these things done in the market," said Gates. "As I have told them many times, I hope they are ready to deal with the demand that we are going to see for the products out there because I am very optimistic about that."