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A Microsoft Tablet?

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Rumors are that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will release a tablet PC today. It will run a version of Windows Mobile designed to operate on ARM architecture. Most analysts of the tablet market believe that the product is as likely to fail as the Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) Playbook and the Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) efforts. The prevailing wisdom is that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) hold too much of the market, and that powerhouse Samsung has the only chance to present a challenge because of the success of its smartphones.

The market may have underestimated the resolve of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. He invested billions of dollars to best incumbents Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Nintendo in the game console market. And his chance to get market share for Windows Mobile through an alliance with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) was ruined by the market’s rejection of the new Lumia line of phones. A Microsoft branded tablet may be all Ballmer has left.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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