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Tablet PC Update

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The TPC Team

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TPC Technologies

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Hardware OEMs

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PEN COMPUTINGMAGAZINE

HOWWILL THETABLET PC

WORKFOR

YOU?

HOWWILL THETABLET PC

WORKFOR

YOU?

Notebook?How is the Tablet PC

different from the

Notebook?

IN THIS ISSUE:

www.tabletpcmagazine.com spring 2002 volume 1 issue 1

2002 Technology updateConvertible vs “Pure” Tablet

CompaqTablet PC Prototype

Interviews with Tablet PCmovers and shakers

PCM 044, Tablet PC insert 3/12/02 10:11 AM Page 3

UPDATE

MARKETINGPositioningThe Tablet PC is still the “evolu-tion of the laptop,” but there havebeen subtle changes inMicrosoft’s messaging. The

Tablet PC is now positioned as a“pure superset of today’s laptopPCs.” The Tablet PC marketingteam is making sure that theTablet PC is not seen as a “laptopwithout a keyboard,” as I de-scribed it in July 2001. The TabletPC is now clearly identified (e.g.

Tablet PC Update

By Geoff Walker

Lots of publicity,

yet Microsoftplays it close

to the vest.Here is

what hashappened

with theTablet PCsince the

initial TabletPC feature

in the July 2001

issue of Pen

ComputingA2

CHANGES AT A GLANCEMANY CHANGES HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN THE TABLET PCPROJECT DURING THE EIGHT MONTHS SINCE THE FIRSTARTICLE. The important changes can be summarized as follows:

● Microsoft has made minor changes in the Tablet PC positioning

● More OEMs and ODMs have joined the project and announcedtheir intentions

● A number of OEMs and ODMs showed hardware prototypes atComdex 2001

● “Windows XP Tablet PC Edition” was announced atComdex 2001

● XP Tablet was promoted from an “add-on” to a full-fledgedversion of Windows

● The Beta-1 version of XP Tablet and the associated SDK werereleased in October

● Microsoft published the Tablet PC Hardware Require-ments document

All of the changes can be grouped into four major categories: (1) marketing, (2) the Tablet PC OEMs & ODMs, (3) software, and (4) hardware.

Microsoft’s Eddie Wu and Robert Williams

PCM 044, Tablet PC insert 3/12/02 10:11 AM Page A2

in the FAQ on the Microsoftwebsite) as having “attahced ordetachable keyboards.” Thefollowing extract from the Mi-crosoft Tablet PC website clearlyillustrates the new positioning:

“First and foremost, the TabletPC is a pure superset of today’slaptop PCs. In fact, many TabletPCs will look exactly like today’straditional clamshell designscomplete with a full keyboard butwill have a mechanism thatconverts the hardware into aslate form. Others will have apure slate form factor. Regard-less of the design, Tablet PCs willbe among the most mobile PCever made, with exceptionallylong battery life, light weight, andmany with built in wireless capa-bility. But the Tablet PC is morethan just a great laptop. It alsoenables users to run Windowsand Windows applications usinga pen, annotate documents,create handwritten documentsusing “digital ink” for later refer-ence or even conversion intotext. Just like today’s portablePCs, Tablet PCs can be put into adocking station at a desk tosupport a large screen monitor,mouse and full size keyboard.Either as a pure slate or as aconvertible model the Tablet PCis the evolution of the laptop – allthe functionality of a laptop withadded Tablet functionality.”

The positioning is especiallyobvious when Microsoft market-ing managers use the Acer proto-type convertible (first shown byBill Gates in his Comdex 2001keynote) as their primary demomachine. A single sample of thatprototype is worth thousands ofwords. It’s so obviously a laptop,and yet, when the screen isflipped around, it’s a pure tablet(slate). It brings home the “super-set of the laptop” message sostrongly that it makes me feel alittle sorry for the majority of theTablet PC OEMs who are creat-

ing pure tablets. In retro-spect, perhaps Microsoftshould have tried evenharder than they did to getmore OEMs to build convert-ibles. (See the sidebar onconvertibles for a brief historyof the convertible genre.)

Target MarketIn Alex Loeb’s Tablet PC strategypresentation at WinHEC 2001, sheidentified the “corporate worker[who] spends a significantamount of time away from [their]desk in formal or informal meet-ings” (a corridor cruiser) as“Microsoft’s first focus.” In lightof Microsoft’s current emphasison the Tablet PC as a “puresuperset of today’s laptop PC,” Ibelieve that Microsoft’s “firstfocus” has shifted to the roadwarrior who wants to replacetheir existing ultraportable lap-tops. This belief is supported byAlex’s statement in the Q&A onpage A13 that “many will seethe value in replacing theircurrent laptops [with TabletPCs] right away.”

PricingWhen asked about pricing,Microsoft always says thatTablet PC pricing will be deter-mined solely by the OEMs(which of course is true). A fewrelevant comments on pricingappeared in the media shortlyafter Comdex 2001, as follows:• In a story in Computerworld,David Lee, director of mobileproduct marking at Taiwan-based Acer, said he expectsthe machines to sell for lessthan $2,000. A story in PC Worldsaid that Acer expects to priceits convertible Tablet PC atabout the same as a laptop witha 10-inch display.• In the same story in Comput-erworld, Kyle Thornton, a prod-uct marketing manager atFujitsu, said he expects Tablet

w w w . t a b l e t p c m a g a z i n e . c o m T a b l e t P C S p r i n g 2 0 0 2

PCs to sell in the range of $1,600to $2,300.

• In a story in eWeek, TedClark, vice president

of the Tablet PCgroup at Compaq,said that he

expected Compaq’sTablet PCs to cost several hundreddollars more than a comparablelaptop.• A story on ZDNet reported thatTablet PCs are expected to costabout $2,000 and may come downin price as manufacturers increasevolumes. • Bill Gates, in an interview withInformation Week, said he expectsthat most computer manufacturerswill price their Tablet PCs in rough-ly the same range as today’s busi-ness laptops.

Based on all available informa-tion, it seems very clear at thispoint that essentially all of theTablet PCs currently under devel-

“We see the majority of

portable PCsshipped to be

Tablet PCs withinfive years.”

OF INTEREST

Mike Hockey shows Compaq Tablet PC concept at Fall Comdex 2001

Alex Loeb, Microsoft


opment can be categorized as“ultraportable laptops” from theviewpoint of size, weight, CPUMHz and screen size. Table 1lists ten ultraportable (business)laptops currently on the market,along with their basic specifica-tions and street price as ofJanuary 2002. The average ofthese ten ultraportable laptopsis a 0.9-inch thick unit weighing3.3 pounds with a 12.1” LCD anda 770 MHz Pentium III, costing$2,083. This average is a veryreasonable target expectationfor the first crop of Tablet PCs.

Volume EstimatesAnticipated volumes are harderto nail down than anticipatedpricing. Synthesizing all theinformation I’ve collected overthe past eight months fromOEMs, ODMs, ISVs, Microsoftand many other sources, Ibelieve that a realistic estimate

A4

Dick BrassA little over a year ago, John Markoff of the New York Times wrotea profile of Dick Brass entitled “Brass in the Middle of Microsoft’sCultural Shift.” The remainder of this sidebar is abstracted verba-tim from John’s article and combined with additional informationfrom Dick Brass’ executive biography on the Microsoft website.

Dick Brass, Vice President, Technology Development Relation-ships (responsible for the Tablet PC, e-book software and e-bookdevices), has been at Microsoft for four years. He came to Mi-crosoft in order to pursue his personal mission of introducing theworld to a new kind of computer: a fully powered Windows tablet,unfettered by keyboard or cables,that would always be with its own-er, always turned on and alwayswirelessly connected to the Inter-net. Just two weeks after he cameto Microsoft to work on electronicbooks in 1997, he was able to con-vince Bill Gates of the importanceof his idea after showing him anultra-slim wooden model of thedream machine that had been puttogether by a cabinet maker whohad worked on Brass’ yacht.

Brass is an anomaly in Microsoft hothouse hacker’s culture,because he is probably known more for his love of good food andwine and his passion for yachting than for his technical accom-plishments. And yet Brass may be the best evidence that Microsoftis in the midst of a fundamental cultural shift. Brass’supporters saythat he has the vision and leadership that Microsoft badly needs asit searches for new directions.

In 1979, while Brass was a features editor for the Daily News ofNew York, it dawned on him one day that it might be possible to turna thesaurus into a computerized reference. He did just that andtoday is still credited as the inventor of the first electronic the-saurus (The Random House Electronic Thesaurus) and the firstdictionary-based spelling checker software. In 1983, his firm, Dic-tronics Publishing, acquired the exclusive electronic rights to manyof the world’s most important reference works, including The Ran-dom House Dictionary, Roget’s International Thesaurus, Black’sLaw Dictionary, the Chicago Manual of Style, and similar worksabroad. Wang Laboratories purchased Dictronics in 1983, andBrass then served as director of Electronic Publishing at Wang.

Brass moved to Seattle in the mid-1980s with a friend to start acompany called General Information, which created the first PC-based telephone directories. It was an idea that would blossom adecade later, but General Information was ahead of its time and thetwo men were eventually forced to sell the company without a profit.

It’s been said for years that the pen tablet (now Tablet PC) is one of Bill Gates’ favorite “holy grailsof personal computing.” Apart from Bill Gates, however, there are two other key Microsoft executivesdriving the Tablet PC project: Dick Brass and Alexandra (Alex) Loeb.

SPOTLIGHT: MICROSOFT TABLET PC EXECUTIVES

Notes: All laptops are configured with 20 GB HDD and 256 MB DRAMStreet prices are midpoint of range reported by search engines as of 1/21/02

Some adjustments could be made to the average cost shown above. For example, while the con-tract price of a 12.1” XGA LCD in Taiwan today is about $170, the contract price of a 10.4” XGA LCDis about $200 (that’s right, it’s $30 higher, even though it’s smaller, due to much lower productionvolume). In addition, the contract price of an active digitizer is around $50. If the Tablet PC is aconvertible, there might be a few extra dollars for the special hinging mechanism. All told, there’sprobably roughly $100 incremental material cost for a 10.4” Tablet PC compared to the ultraportablelaptops in the table. If the Compaq Evo N200 (for example) were to be turned into a Tablet PC, thatwould mean a street price of about $2,000. Gee, sounds about right!

TABLE 1: CONVENTIONAL ULTRAPORTABLE LAPTOPSMODEL THICK (IN.) WEIGHT LCD (XGA) CPU STREET PRICE

Compaq Evo N200 0.8 2.5 lbs 10.4" 700 MHz ULV P3 $1,821 Compaq Evo N400c 0.9 3.5 lbs 12.1" 850 MHz P3 $2,110 Dell Latitude C400 1.0 3.6 lbs 12.1" 1.2 GHz P3 $2,638 Dell Latitude L400 1.0 3.4 lbs 12.1" 700 MHz P3 $2,296 Gateway Solo 34350 0.8 3.8 lbs 12.1" 750 MHz P3 $1,878 HP Omnibook 500 1.0 3.5 lbs 12.1" 700 MHz P3 $2,623 KDS ThinNote 376CH 1.0 3.2 lbs 12.1" 600 MHz P3 $1,326 Sharp PC-UM10 0.7 2.9 lbs 12.1" 600 MHz ULV P3 $1,758 Sony PCG-R505 1.0 3.8 lbs 12.1" 850 MHz P3 $2,135 Toshiba Protege 2000 0.7 2.6 lbs 12.1" 750 MHz P3 $2,199 Average 0.9 3.3lbs 12.1" 770 MHz P3 $2,083



for the total volume in the firsttwelve months of all Tablet PCshipments is somewhere be-tween 500,000 and one millionunits. This volume will be spreadover twelve to 14 OEMs. Calcu-lating an average volume perOEM isn’t meaningful, because Ibelieve what will happen is thata few (perhaps three) OEMs will“get it right” and sell 100 to 150thousand each, while the re-maining OEMs will sell 25 to 50thousand each for a total ofaround 750K units. By “get itright” I mean the right combina-tion of look and feel (industrialdesign), CPU horsepower,battery life, dockability, weight,screen size, ease of use, etc.

According to IDC, the totalnumber of laptops (of all sizes)sold in 2001 was about 26 mil-lion. A volume range of 500,000to one million means that theTablet PC would account forabout 2-4% of 2001’s total laptop

volume. That feels like a reason-able number for the first year ofa new form factor with a newOS (note that volume at thislevel would significantly outper-form the first year of WindowsCE 1.0 products!). IDC analystAlan Promisel’s estimate of theTablet PC’s first year volume is1-3% of the laptop market, aslightly less optimistic.

Acer, on the other hand, ispredicting that Tablet PCs willaccount for about 10% of thelaptop market in 2002 (as report-ed in the United Daily News

Chinese-language newspaper,and translated in a story onDigiTimes.com). That would be atleast 2.6 million units, which iscompletely impossible, given thatthe Tablet PC isn’t even going tostart shipping until the secondhalf of 2002. Acer is even moreoptimistic for 2003, predictingthat Tablet PCs will represent upto 25-30% of the overall laptopmarket in 2003.

Reporting on spoken com-ments by company executives,combined with translation fromChinese to English, can be atricky business. It’s possible thatAcer meant that the Tablet PCwould account for 25-30% of theultraportable laptop market in2003 (the first full year of ship-ments). According to IDC, ultra-portable laptop shipments in2003 are forecasted to be 4.6million units. 25% of 4.6 million is1.15 million, only slightly abovethe one million upper-end esti-

In 1989, Brass bought a Mac-intosh computer for a friend sothat the friend could produce aproper business plan for his newventure, Omnipoint, a wireless telephone network that was eventu-ally acquired by Voicestream for $2 billion. Because he was given aone percent stake in Omnipoint in exchange for the Macintosh, thefavor made Brass a millionaire many times over.

Brass was hired by Oracle in 1989 after persuading Larry Ellisonthat there was money to be made from broadcasting the content ofnewspapers to PCs. Brass stayed at Oracle for eight years, first aspresident of Oracle’s Data Publishing subsidiary, and then as seniorvice president for Corporate Affairs. In the latter position, he wasinvolved in strategy and writing speeches for Ellison — who isknown for having publicly taunted Gates. Brass even acknowledgesbeing an accomplice to the group of Silicon Valley executives thatworked behind the scenes to help persuade the Justice Departmentto bring its antitrust suit against Microsoft. In this context, Brass’move from Ellison to Gates was a change of allegiance worth of thenovel “Shogun.”

Dick Brass works for Jeff Raikes, Group Vice President for Pro-ductivity and Business Services. Jeff Raikes works for SteveBallmer, CEO of Microsoft. It’s interesting to note that Jim Allchin,the Group Vice President for Platforms (i.e., responsible for allversions of Windows) is not in the chain of command for the TabletPC, even though XP Tablet is in fact a version of Windows. This isbecause the Tablet PC is still considered an “emerging technology”rather than a standard Windows product. ◆

Alexandra LoebAlex, who works for Dick Brass and is responsible for about 200people, has been at Microsoft for 13 years.Her initial assignmentwas as a member of the Network Business Unit, where she wasthe program manager in charge of shipping Microsoft LAN Man-ager 1.01 and 2.0 Later she shifted her focus to developing techni-cal information for internal and external field product support forvarious high-end products such as LAN Manager, Microsoft SQLServer” and Windows NT. She spent two years in Microsoft’sSales and Marketing Division, launching Microsoft TechNet andTechEd and expanding Microsoft’s Certified Professional Pro-gram.

In 1994, Alex returned to the product side of Microsoft, whereshe became product unit manager for Microsoft Publisher and theMedia Store until joining Microsoft Research in 1997. At MicrosoftResearch, she initiated what became the Microsoft Office Docu-ment Imaging project.

Since 1999, Alex has been leading the Tablet PC project asGeneral Manager, responsible for all development, design andmarketing of the Tablet PC. Most recently, in January of this year,Alex was promoted to Corporate Vice President, Tablet PC Divi-sion. Alex becomes the eleventh female VP at Microsoft. Herelevation to vice president is a sign that Microsoft is placing in-creasing importance on the Tablet PC project.“It does send asignal that the Tablet PC is a pretty big bet,” a Microsoftspokesman was quoted as saying in a Reuters News Service storyon January 17. ◆

VIA reference design


A6

CONVERTIBLE VS PURE TABLET

CHARACTERISTIC CONVERTIBLE PURE TABLET KEYBOARD Internal External (direct connect or IR) WEIGHT Heavier due to keyboard and extra layers of housing Lighter THICKNESS Thicker due to keyboard Thinner RUGGEDNESS Less rugged due to hinge More rugged COST Slightly higher due to hinge and keyboard Slightly lower DOCKABILITY May be compromised due to screen hinge and movement No compromise LCD More likely to use 12.1” to compete with ultraportables More likely to use 10.4” for smallest size and weight COOLING Less need for a fan due to more heat dissipation surfaces More need for a fan due to fewer heat dissipation surfaces

CONVERTIBLESA convertible can be defined as a portable, notebook-style com-puter built in a way that allows it to be used as either a tradition-al notebook (with an integrated keyboard) or a pen tablet (with a pen in-terface). Historically, a number of different methods of constructing aconvertible have been used, as follows:

1. The screen is supported on a single hingedarm that connects the rear of the notebook to themidpoint of the back of the screen. The screencan be positioned similar to that of normal note-book (with the keyboard forward), or the bottomedge of the screen can slide forward until thescreen is lying flat on top of the keyboard. Exam-ple: GRiD Convertible in 1992 (the first convertible.

2. The screen is supported on two hinged arms that connect the rearcorners of the notebookto each side of the mid-point of the screen. Thescreen can be positionedsimilar to that of a normalnotebook (with the key-board forward), or rotat-ed 90 degrees around itshorizontal center axisand laid flat on top of thekeyboard. (This is a vari-ant of method #1; Vadem dubbed it the “SwingTop” design.) Examples: Va-dem Clio in 1998 (also marketed by Sharp as the Mobilon Tripad); IBMThinkPads 750P and 360PE in 1993 to 1995.

3. The screen is hinged at the back like a normal notebook, but it canalso be rotated 180 degreesaround its vertical centeraxis and then closed, leav-ing the screen facing up-wards. Examples: AcerTravelMate TM100 TabletPC; Hewlett-Packard’s“Concept PC 2001” (seePopular Science, February2002, page 13).

4. The screen is hinged at the back like a normal notebook, but it canalso be unplugged entirely, rotated 180 degrees, then plugged back in andclosed, leaving the screen facing upwards. (This is an early variant of #3.)Examples: NEC Versa 50ECP and Panasonic CF-V21P in 1995.

5. The screen opens likea normal notebook, then con-tinues opening until it has ro-tated through 360 degrees andis folded underneath the note-book (this is usually called a“foldback” design). Examples:Fujitsu INTERTop in 1998;Sharp HC-7000 (also current-ly marketed by Intermec asthe 6651 Pen Tablet).

The above five methods are the only ones that have been used to datethat result in a “true” convertible, i.e., a portable computer with both apen interface and an integrated keyboard. Pen tablet vendors have usedtwo other methods to accomplish a similar purpose, as follows:

■ A pen tablet built with a detachable keyboardso that it works like a notebook when it’s on a desk.Examples: Compaq Concerto and Telepad-3 in 1995.

■ A pen tablet and a keyboard packaged to-gether in a “portfolio” carrying case. Examples:current Fujitsu PenCentra and Stylistic LT; DauphinDTR-1 & 2 in the mid-1990s.

Fujitsu INTERTop

Vadem Clio

Acer TravelMate TM100

IBM ThinkPad 360PE

GRiDConvertible

Compaq Concerto


mate suggested previously. Thefact that Acer is developing aconvertible Tablet PC, a formfactor that’s likely to be muchmore popular than a pure tablet,can easily account for thedifference in optimism.

Microsoft seems very com-fortable with the one millionnumber for the first year (amillion seems to be a “thresholdof interest” for Microsoft on anyproduct – volumes less than amillion just don’t interest them).However, the growth rate forthe following four years is any-one’s guess. Starting from abase of 750,000 in the first year,a compound annual growth rateof 80% (an arbitrary number)yields a volume of almost eightmillion in the fifth year, or about16% of the projected 50 milliontotal laptop market in 2007.Again that seems within therealm of possibility if convert-ibles are included.

Microsoft’s target is for thepenetration of Windows XPTablet PC Edition to reach 50%of all laptops in 2007. Note thatthis is the OS penetration rate,not the Tablet PC hardwarevolume. Microsoft’s predictionis based on the belief that theTablet PC will cause the use ofa pen to become so compellingthat pen support will be addedto at least half of all laptopswithin five years. XP Tabletwill thus become the “newmobile OS.” At that point, thedifference between a TabletPC and a standard laptop willbe so blurred as to be mean-ingless – the Tablet PC willtruly have become the “evolu-tion of the laptop.”

OS Adoption RateOne flaw I see in all of the abovevolume projections is that theytotally ignore the issue of OSadoption rate. The Tablet PC isinitially targeted at enterprise(corridor cruisers or road war-riors, it doesn’t really matter

which), and enterprise is notori-ous for being very slow to adopta new Microsoft operatingsystem. For example, Fujitsu, thecurrent leader in pen tablets forcorporate project-based applica-tions, hasn’t yet shipped evenone copy of Windows XP to apen tablet customer in NorthAmerica. Fujitsu says that enter-prise simply isn’t ready to eventhink about moving to XP. Win-

dows XP Tablet PC Editionis a full-fledged new version ofWindows, not just XP Pro with afew files added on top (more onthis later). What’s going to causeenterprise to suddenly throwcaution to the wind and buy amillion copies of XP Tablet in thefirst year? Will the hardwarealone be so compelling that itwill totally drive sales of the newOS? I don’t think so. In the first

year, Tablet PCs are going to bepurchased largely by IT depart-ments, the same way that busi-ness laptops are purchasedtoday. IT is going to have tosupport XP Tablet, and the penalready has a bad reputationfrom the pen computing craze ofthe early 1990s. The result maybe many “evaluation” purchasesby enterprise, but no big rolloutsto thousands of knowledgeworkers during the first year.That could put a severe crimp ineveryone’s expectations.

Press Reaction at Comdex 2001In general, the press reaction tothe Tablet PC announcementsand demos at Comdex 2001 wasnot significantly different fromthat following Comdex 2000.Overall, it was negative to neu-tral. The single most commontheme in the press coveragewas that there simply isn’t a


Table 2: Announced Tablet PC Hardware and Software ParticipantsHARDWARE BUSINESS ROLECOMPANY MODEL

Acer OEM Tablet PC hardware vendor using Wistron as ODMCompaq OEM Tablet PC hardware vendor using LG Electronics as ODMFIC ODM Building Tablet PC for ViewSonicFujitsu PC OEM Tablet PC hardware vendor building own productsLG Electronics ODM Building Tablet PC for CompaqNEC OEM Tablet PC hardware vendor building own productsPAD Products OEM Tablet PC hardware vendor using an unnamed ODMTatung ODM Tablet PC builder seeking OEM customerToshiba OEM Tablet PC hardware vendor building own productsViewSonic OEM Tablet PC hardware vendor using FIC as ODMWistron ODM Building Tablet PC for Acer; seeking OEM for pure tablet

SOFTWARE COMPANY PRODUCTS ENABLED FOR TABLET PC

Adobe Systems Adobe Acrobat (network publishing solutions)Allscripts Healthcare Solutions TouchWorks (point-of-care decision support for physicians)Amicore Physician office software and servicesAutodesk AutoCAD, Inventor, Streamline, etc. (design solutions)Corel Graphics and business productivity applicationsGroove Networks Web-based collaboration solutionsMicrosoft Office XP (office productivity); Visio (business diagrams)LexisNexis Decision support and research solutionsZinio Systems Digital magazine technology and services

FIC Tablet PC prototype


A8

market for Tablet PCs, thatnobody needs them. This themewas most aptly expressed byPaul Thurrott, writing for WinIn-fo.com: “There’s a big gapbetween cool and necessary.”

The specific concerns ex-pressed by the reporters weren’tvery surprising – they includedthe usual things, such as:

• People want an integratedkeyboard (i.e., a convertible,not a pure tablet)• Tablet PCs priced as high-endlaptops will be too expensive• Handwriting is too slowand inaccurateTwo of the more visible nega-

tive comments in the press wereas follows:

• Jeff Hawkins, HandspringChairman and Chief ProductOfficer, during his Comdexkeynote: “Some ideas never die.I can’t understand it. I’m sur-prised [Tablet PCs have] comeback. It’s like bell-bottompants.” [This, from the inventorof the first pen tablet!]

• Bill Howard, Contributing

Editor of PC Magazine, in hiseditorial “On Technology: Whatto Expect in 2002,” in the Janu-ary 15th issue: “Many obstaclesremain: Tablets break whendropped, drop-resistant tabletscost too much, andlaptop/tablet hybrids eitherexpose the keyboard on theunderside in tablet mode or canonly hide the keyboard with afragile hinge. I fear tablets arethe answer to a question notenough people are asking.”

Media ConfusionEven now (March), six monthsaway from the launch of XPTablet, there is substantialconfusion in the media aboutwhat is and isn’t a Tablet PC. Forexample, in the January 15 issueof PC Magazine, there’s a storyentitled “Tablet PC Makers GearUp” which is actually a reviewof ViewSonic’s ViewPad 100“SuperPDA” (a very solid web-pad). Some of the current pentablet manufacturers (such asViewSonic again, not to pick onthem) are already labeling theirexisting products as Tablet PCs.ViewSonic’s data sheet on theViewPad 1000 pen tablet clearlylabels it as a Tablet PC, eventhough (a) Windows XP Tablet

Dr. Gene Sheu: President,Networking and InformationGroup; First InternationalComputer, Inc.

While I was in Taiwan lastDecember I had the opportuni-ty to meet with Dr. Gene Sheu,president of First InternationalComputer, Inc.’s Networkingand Information Group. Itturned out that his wife hadgone to college in Albany andhe was familiar with the Al-bany/Troy/Schenectady areawhere I lived for 17 yearsbefore moving to California.Dr. Sheu presented what onemight consider a holistic viewof technology: It does notreally matter whether theinitial Tablet PC, or any onetechnology for that matter,succeeds. What matters isthat its exploration furthers theoverall state of the art, whichis good for everyone.

PCM: FIC has shown someinteresting Tablet PC proto-types. What is your assess-ment of the current situation inthe desktop and notebookindustry?

Dr. Gene Sheu: The PC era isclearly over. Unfortunately,there is no clear direction as towhat comes next and thesituation is confusing rightnow. We finally have good,reliable networks, but we’rebeing confronted with toomany different standards.There are lots of devices, buthow do we get them all tocommunicate? For example,

mainland China does not allow802.11b and there is the matterof licensing spectrum in somecountries. You could say it isthe worst of times and the bestof times.

PCM: What trends do yousee on the application side?

Dr. Gene Sheu: Content willmatter. Multimedia will beimportant. Devices that canhandle multimedia and easilybring content to people will beimportant.

PCM: What’s your view ofWebpads and the Tablet PC?

Dr. Gene Sheu: They aretwo different products andconcepts. The Tablet PC defi-nitely has its place. The Mi-crosoft OS, the Microsoftname, plug and play, and thematurity of Windows aredefinitely a plus. In Asiancultures, especially, tabletsare a natural and tablet prod-ucts will expand the overallmarket. A keyboard is notcreative. You cannot createpictures with it. A pen and ink,on the other hand, allow you todo new things. Ink will be thekiller app for tablet computers.I also believe in voice recogni-tion. A combination of pen andvoice will add a new dimen-sion, although those productswill still offer keyboards as anoption. As for Webpads, FIChas some interesting productsthere as well with our Aqua-Pad line. Webpads must be assmall and light as possible.

PCM: What arethe technicalissues you’refacing?

Dr. Gene Sheu:The Tablet PC is afascinating chal-lenge. Microsoftviews the TabletPC as a high endproduct, so peo-ple who wantmore will buyTablet PCs. Theseproducts will nothave fans, theywill run cool, it’slike a dream.Investing in theTablet PC is an investment infuture technology. Most of thetechnologies used in theTablet PC are enablers. Work-ing on them is an investmentin great future technology.We’re looking at many as-pects, like backups for theactive digitizer.

PCM: You have been show-ing prototypes based both onIntel and Transmeta processortechnology. Why?

Dr. Gene Sheu: We arelooking at both and using ourCrystal and Thunder Tablet PCprototypes to test them. From aphysics point of view, Trans-meta does not need manytransistors to get the job done.However, Intel pushes themicron levels lower and lower,and they just may pull it (acool-running, power-efficientprocessor) off. ◆

TABLET PC VISIONARY: FIC’s Dr. Gene Sheu (by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

Dr. Gene Sheu, FIC


PC Edition is not available yet,and (b) the product itself has atouch (passive) digitizer ratherthan the required active digitiz-er. This confusion is going to bewith us for the rest of 2002 andprobably even longer.

TABLET PC OEMs & ODMsAnnounced ParticipantsOf the original five OEMs whoannounced at WinHEC 2001 thatthey would be building TabletPCs (Acer, Compaq, Fujitsu,Sony and Toshiba), Sony isconspicuous for the absence ofany visible activity during thelast eight months. The other fourOEMs have all shown Tablet PCprototypes at Comdex 2001 or inpress conferences. In fact, Sonyseems to be going in the otherdirection. In a story widelypublished in the press duringthe week of January 14, it wasreported that “due to weaksales,” Sony is ending produc-tion of its desktop VAIO SlimtopPen Tablet products and willcancel development of follow-up products as well. The Slimtopwasn’t a Tablet PC, but as apen-based desktop video tablet,it’s a close cousin. It’s practical-ly certain at this point that Sony

won’t participate in the firstround of Tablet PC products.

On the positive side, a num-ber of additional OEMs, ODMsand ISVs announced at Comdex2001 that they are joining theTablet PC program. The list ofannounced Tablet PC partici-pants is shown in Table 2 .

Non-ParticipantsThere are at least three bigOEMs who are conspicuous bytheir absence from the TabletPC program: Dell, IBM andGateway. Each of these haverecently commented in thepress about why they’re notparticipating, as follows:• “We talk to our customers,and they haven’t been telling usthat this is something theyabsolutely want to have. [TheTablet PC] is an idea that’s beenaround for a long, long time, andmaybe this time it will work. Butwe like to bring things to marketthat are relevant.” (MichaelDell, Dell’s chairman) • “IBM is not interested indeveloping an IBM-brandedTablet PC anytime soon. In lightof the current economic slow-down and other related condi-tions, IBM sees the Tablet PC asan experiment that simply doesnot fit into IBM’s current back-to-basics approach to selling ITservices and related hardware. Ihave yet to find a customer thathas asked for a Tablet PC.” (LeoSuarez, IBM’s vice president ofworldwide product marketing

for personal computing devices)• “We dabbled in some non-PCdevices over the last year, andlearned a lot from ourcustomers. We feel the focusnow is on networked PCs andlow-cost notebooks that can[do] the job of a Tablet PC.”(Gateway representative LisaEmard)

Comdex 2001 PrototypesTable 3 lists the Tablet PC proto-types that were shown atComdex 2001. Some of theprototypes were shown only ata press conference (dubbed a“Tablet PC lovefest event” byeWeek) following Gates’keynote speech on Mondaynight, while others were shownin the company booths atComdex. Note that Table 3 doesnot include webpads, CE tabletsor pen tablets that were shownat Comdex (of which there wereat least 12, including ViewSon-ic’s ViewPad 1000 pen tablet).

SOFTWAREGood Progress OnFour FrontsGood Progress On Four FrontsIn the July 2001 article, I identi-fied four key elements of Mi-crosoft’s work on the Tablet PCprogram. Microsoft has madegood progress on all four during

the last eight months, as follows:

• Windows XP Tablet PC Edi-tion operating system: The Beta-1 version was released on CD atthe Microsoft ProfessionalDeveloper’s Conference inOctober 2001. Access to theBeta software requires approvalby Microsoft.• Microsoft note-taking pro-gram: The program was named“Microsoft Journal” and de-moed at Comdex 2001. It has nonew visible features sinceWinHEC; the beta version is notavailable yet.• Tools for software develop-ment: The Tablet PC SDK is onthe same CD as the Beta-1version of XP Tablet. A substan-tial portion of the SDK documen-tation is available in the MSDNLibrary.• Tablet PC Hardware Require-ments Specification: Posted onthe Microsoft website October17, 2001 (many months later thananticipated, but complete).

XP Tablet ArchitectureWhen it was first announced atWinHEC 2001, XP Tablet wasdescribed as a layer on top ofWindows XP Pro. This concepthas now been abandoned, andXP Tablet has become a full-fledged member of the WindowsXP family – a standalone versionof Windows. The family willconsist of XP Home for con-sumers, XP Pro for enterpriseand XP Tablet for mobile. Re-membering some of the difficul-ties that the “layer on top ofWindows” approach caused inWindows for Pen Computing inthe early 1990s, this change isdefinitely a good thing. Howev-er, it has resulted in a slip in thescheduled delivery date for XPTablet.

When XP Tablet was simplyan add-on to XP Pro, Microsoft’sTablet PC team was in morecontrol of the schedule and the


TABLE 3: TABLET PC PROTOTYPES SHOWN AT COMDEX 2001COMPANY PRODUCT NAME FORM FACTOR LCD CPUAcer TravelMate TM100 Convertible 10.4” XGA Intel P3Compaq (unnamed) Tablet 10.4” XGA Transmeta 600 MHzFIC Thunder Tablet 10.4” XGA Intel P3 ULV 700-800 MHzFIC Crystal Tablet 10.4” XGA Transmeta 800 MHz - 1 GHzFujitsu Stylistic 3500 (mod.) Tablet 10.4” XGA Intel Celeron 500 MHzIntel (reference design) Tablet 8.4” SVGA Intel P3 ULVTatung Tangy 440 Tablet 10.4” XGA Intel P3 ULV 700 MHzToshiba (unnamed) Tablet (unknown) (unknown)VIA (reference design) Tablet 10.4” XGA VIA C3Wistron (unnamed) Tablet 10.4” XGA Intel P3


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expected delivery date wasJune 2002. Now that XP Tabletmust go through the standardrelease and distribution methodfor a full version of Windows,the expected delivery hasslipped to the fourth quarter of2002. Another reason for the slipis that XP Tablet has becomedependent on some of the codethat will be in Windows XPService Pack 1 (scheduled forrelease in the second half of2002). Microsoft has not yetcommitted to a firm shipmentdate for XP Tablet. The officialMicrosoft line is that “the TabletPC will ship in the second half of2002.” Most analysts and ob-servers currently expect ship-ment in the fourth quarter (“byyear’s end”). The shipment datecould be delayed even furtherby Bill Gates’ recent directivethat all Microsoft developersshould focus on security.Since most of the Tablet PCOEMs plan to wait to shiptheir first product until therelease of XP Tablet,further schedule slipscould become verypainful for the OEMswith regard to revenueand hardware competi-tiveness with standardlaptops.

An often-askedquestion is “what is thebasic difference between XPTablet and the other versions ofWindows XP?” The essentialdifference is XP Tablet’s supportfor “ink as a data type.” Whatthis means is that when the usercreates ink, instead of the inkbeing stored as a bit map or asjust a series of point coordi-nates, it is stored as a data typewith a set of properties. Ink datacan include per-point properties(e.g., x, y, pressure, angle, time),per-stroke properties (e.g.,color, anti-aliasing, curve fitting,content description), global inkproperties (e.g., backgroundrecognition results and alterna-tives) and unique user- or appli-

cation-defined properties. At themost basic level, this allows inkto be bolded, italicized or under-lined just like regular text. Inadvanced ink-enabled applica-tions, this allows ink objects tobe re-flowed and overlayed inways similar to other text,graphics, vector shape andmultimedia objects.

Microsoft has a plan forextending “ink as a data type”beyond XP Tablet if the TabletPC is well accepted by themarketplace and XP Tabletactually becomes “the nextmobile OS.” The first level of theplan is to provide a “reader” forink documents, similar to theway that Adobe provides areader for PDF documents.Using the reader, a user of anyother version of Windows willbe able to read ink documentscreated on a Tablet PC. Thesecond level will be to provide

add-

in librariesfor other versions ofWindows that allow applica-tions to create and manage inkdocuments. The third level (along-term goal) is to make “inkas a data type” a fundamentalpart of all versions of Windows.

Beyond “ink as a data type,”the second major differencebetween XP Tablet and theother versions of XP is its abilityto be used with a pen as theonly input device (no keyboardor mouse). The user will be ableto respond to every request forinput, error condition or mes-

sage generated by theoperating system or an

application with just a pen.

User InterfaceXP Tablet’s user interface is stillbeing tuned and tweaked. Whilethere is a substantial amount ofSDK documentation availableonline in the MSDN Library, it’smostly aimed at helping ISVswrite good pen-centric applica-tions. (To access the documen-tation, go to http://msdn.mi-crosoft.com/library and thendrill down through Windows

Development – Tablet PC – SDKDocumentation – MicrosoftTablet PC Platform SDK. Thereare more than 100 pages online,without even counting thedetailed Tablet PC API Refer-ence.)

User documentation coveringthe basics of using Windowswith a pen doesn’t seem to existyet. However, by reading theSDK documentation you can getan idea of what it’s going to belike. For example, an SDK docu-ment entitled “Making WindowsWork with a Pen” includes a listof common pen gestures that

Tablet PC History1989The first pen tablet (the GRiDPAD, from GRiD Systems) is invent-ed by Jeff Hawkins, the future founder of Palm and Handspring.

1991-1995The pen computing craze, fueled by Microsoft’s Windows forPen Computing. For a fascinating view of this period, read Start-up: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan, the founder of GO(available in paperback for $11 from Amazon).

August 1999Microsoft starts development of the Microsoft Tablet PC.

November 2000 Bill Gates shows the Tablet PC prototype at Comdex 2000.

February 2001Microsoft unveils the technical details of the Tablet PC prototypeat WinHEC (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference) 2001.

June 2001Microsoft holds an invitation-only conference on the Tablet PC inSeattle, Washington. About 200 people attend, representing awide range of OEMs, IHVs and ISVs. Development of Tablet PCproducts starts in earnest.

October 2001The Beta-1 version of the Tablet PC operating systemand the related SDK (Software Development Kit) is

released at Microsoft’s PDC (Professional DeveloperConference) 2001.

November 2001Microsoft announces “Windows XP Tablet PC Edition” at

Comdex 2001. First hardware prototypes of TabletPCs are shown by Acer, Compaq, FIC, Fujitsu, Intel,

Tatung, Toshiba, VIA, and Wistron.



map to traditional mouse events.One of the gestures allows youto create a right-click withoutusing a side (barrel) button onthe pen. The method is as fol-lows: touch the pen tip to thescreen, hold it there for aboutone second. The cursor changesto an animated sketch of a menufor about one second. Lift thepen during the time the cursor isanimated, and a right-clickcontext menu appears. Thissounds more difficult than itactually is. It’s a little tricky atfirst to get used to the timing, butonce you’ve mastered it, thegesture is easy and feels natural.

Although Microsoft’s methodof doing a right-click doesn’trequire a side button on the pen,100% of the Tablet PC OEMs areincluding one or two side but-tons on their Tablet PC pens.Regardless of Microsoft’s stateddesire to eliminate side buttons,most of the OEMs believe thatit’s simply easier to hold the sidebutton and tap the screen to doa right click. Having one or morebuttons on the pen also allowsfor more programmable (user-selectable) functions. Mostdesktop digitizer tablets (suchas those from Wacom,http://www.wacom.com) pro-vide a range of functions thatcan be assigned to the sidebuttons, so many existing penusers are already familiar withthe use of side buttons.

In addition to a set of com-mon gestures, Microsoft plansto include a set of applicationgestures for use in applicationprograms (presumably, Mi-crosoft will use these them-selves when making Office XPand Visio pen-aware). None ofthese gestures are in the cur-rently available Beta-1 versionof XP Tablet. The gestures thathave been defined so far in-clude such functions as copy,paste, cut, undo, change case,backspace, new line and space.A list of “to be defined” ges-tures include file operations

(new, open, save, print), format-ting operations (bold, italic,underline), and scrolling opera-tions (left/right/up/down to endof screen/page/document). Inthe SDK documentation, Mi-crosoft notes that “there ismuch testing needed to under-stand which gestures can bereliably recognized, as well aswhich ones make the mostsense to the user.” Given theexperience that the pen tabletindustry has been through withgestures in the past ten years,this is a significant understate-ment.

Another user interface ele-ment of significant interest isthe TIP (text input processor).This is the area where the userwrites characters that are beinginput to the system. XP tabletwill support both a boxed TIP(the default) and a full-windowTIP. Microsoft’s testing hasshown that a new user with noprevious pen tablet experienceis most comfortable writing in adefined location (a boxed TIP),rather than anywhere on thescreen. On the other hand, thepen tablet industry’s experienceover the past ten years hasshown that experienced usersdefinitely prefer being able towrite anywhere on the screen (afull-window TIP). The choice ofTIP in XP Tablet will be user-selectable, but like the gestures,this capability isn’t available fortesting in Beta-1.

In summarizing the softwaredevelopment design guidelinesfor ISVs, Microsoft makes acurious statement: “People willspend the majority of their timeinteracting with the Tablet PCusing Windows and spend acomparatively small amount oftime using true pen-basedapplications.” Thinking abouthow people use laptops today,this would seem to be veryuntrue – most people spend themajority their time in applica-tions, not interacting with Win-dows. Perhaps the statement is

simply a reflection of the TabletPC development team’s appar-ent orientation towards “doingcool things with Windows onthe Tablet PC.”

Ink in Office XPMicrosoft announced atComdex 2001 that add-ins tosupport ink in Office XP 2002(Word, PowerPoint and Outlookonly) and Visio 2002 will beavailable at the same time as XPTablet’s release. In addition,handwritten notes taken inMicrosoft’s new Journal pro-gram will be able to be integrat-ed with the contacts, calendarand task information in Outlook.

In his keynote speech, Gatesdemoed marking up a Worddocument with ink. In the Mi-crosoft booth, members of theTablet PC team demoed how inkmight be integrated with Out-look. The demo showed how auser could respond to a textemail by hitting a pen icon onthe Outlook toolbar. The textportion of the email moveddown, and an ink-entry boxappeared above the text. Theuser could then scribble an inkresponse (with or without usinghandwriting recognition) and hitSend. The recipient would seethe ink just as the sender hadwritten it. This is a good exam-ple of “ink as a data type.” Theink isn’t attached to the email asa bitmap or a vector file, it’sstored as data in the email thesame way that text is stored inthe email. Any graphic enhance-ment that the sender makes tothe ink (such as bold or color) isstored as an ink propertyrecord.

Talking to XP TabletIn the hundreds of pages ofdocumentation in the XP TabletSDK, only about four pages aredevoted to Speech. XP Tabletwill include the MicrosoftSpeech API, but the amount of

attention being paid to it seemsto be the minimum that willenable Microsoft to say that theTablet PC supports speechrecognition. The focus of thespeech documentation in theSDK is on explaining to ISVshow to ensure that their TabletPC applications can be con-trolled by voice (e.g., by saying“File – Page Setup –Landscape”). This is not exactlystate-of-the art use of voicerecognition. On the other hand,the use of commercial speech-recognition products such asIBM’s ViaVoice on a Tablet PCshould be no different than onan ultraportable laptop.

Further TestingIf the XP Tablet release cycle isconsistent with that of otherversions of Windows, thereshould be two more Beta ver-sions, spaced three to fourmonths apart. Beta-2 shouldtherefore be released in thespring, and Beta-3 (traditionallythe last Beta before Release toManufacturing (RTM)) should bein the summer. Microsoft hasmade no formal announcementsabout this schedule, and asnoted earlier, it could changesubstantially if a large numberof Microsoft’s developers areredirected into security-orientedactivities. Microsoft has an-nounced that there will be aTablet PC “customer trial pro-gram” (called a Rapid AdopterProgram, or RAP, in Microsoft-speak). This program will usesample units from severalOEMs, Beta-2 or Beta-3 soft-ware (TBD), and is likely to takeplace during the summer.

HARDWAREHardware RequirementsMicrosoft’s Tablet PC HardwareRequirements (see


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Following is a list of questions Pen Com-puting Magazine posed to Alex Loeb, VicePresident of Microsoft’s Tablet PC division:

PCM: Alex, here at Pen Computing Mag-azine we have been following and coveringthe pen industry for almost ten years. Letme say upfront that we are very pleasedwith Microsoft’s Tablet PC project. Mi-crosoft’s unwavering belief in the pen andpen tablets as an important future techno-logy helped keeping pen technology aliveafter it was declared dead several yearsago. Microsoft’s own efforts in the penarena, of course, have had their ups anddowns, but it seems that your companyclearly believes the time for the Tablet PChas come and that it is putting great effortinto this project. We WANT for Microsoftto succeed with the Tablet PC and this iswhy we would like to ask you some toughquestions. So let’s get started:

What exactly is the justification for theTablet PC? Sure, it is nice to have thepower of a full PC and all the features ofWindows XP, but if portability and simplici-ty are issues, wouldn’t people be better offwith a lighter, simpler product such as a CE.NET-based slate?

Alex Loeb: There are literally tens ofthousands of Windows applications todaythat our customers use and depend on torun their businesses. We need to enableour customers to continue to leverage theinvestment they have made in using thoseapplications. In addition, we want to expandthe capabilities of the PC to new scenarios,to enable it to support and run those appli-cations in new places and in new ways. TheTablet PC, which incorporates pen-basedtechnologies portable Windows PCs, doesjust that. And the combination of the TabletPC form factor and pen based technologiesenables new ways to use the PC - such astaking handwritten notes in meetings andannotating documents. In short, the TabletPC makes it possible for people to use theirPC in more aspects of their day withoutmaking any compromises since it is a fullWindows XP PC and a pure superset oftoday’s laptops.

PCM: I think Microsoft stated that TabletPCs will be premium-priced products. We

understand that the digitizer and pen addcost, but feel that this extra cost will workagainst Tablet PC acceptance. In the past,pen products failed in part due to the pricepremium of the pen. And the large pricepremium of Sony’s pen-enabled Vaio Slim-top was listed as one of the reason for itsfailure. And high price was also cited as areason for IBM’s decision to kill theTransnote. Wouldn’t it be better to justabsorb that extra cost?

Alex Loeb: In terms of hardware pricing,that’s up to each computer manufacturer.We would expect that Tablet PCs will bepriced at approximately the same level astoday’s premium portable PCs. The pricingwill undoubtedly vary according to the waythe computer manufacturer chooses toequip their machines.

PCM: A pen is quite different from amouse. Over a decade ago, Go realizedthat when they developed a totally pen-centric operating environment, PenPoint.In our opinion, subsequent efforts, includ-ing Windows for Pen Computing, failed inpart because they simply added pen func-tionality to a mouse-centric OS. From whatwe have seen so far, the Tablet PC editionof Windows XP takes the same approach.Wouldn’t it make more sense to create aninterface designed from the ground up forthe pen?

Alex Loeb: Again, I want to stress theinvestment that customers have made inthe Windows operating system and Win-dows applications. Microsoft is deeplyinvolved in the study of user interfacedesign, and has spent a lot of time workingwith customers and learning from theextensive work that others in the industryhave done. One key thing we’ve discoveredis that people do not want to learn how touse a new OS with a new user interface,just as they do not want to learn new appli-cations that are designed exclusively forpen-based input. Instead, users want tointegrate their pen-specific tasks in a waythat’s consistent with their PC experiencetoday. Thus, the OS for the Tablet PC buildson top of Windows XP Professional, whichhas been extended to support pen-basedtechnologies without forcing any compro-

mises. The goal with the Tablet PC is toprovide a seamless experience for the userwhether they are typing a memo at theirdesk, using a full keyboard and a mouse, ortaking notes in a meeting room using a pen.

PCM: A pet peeve of ours here at PenComputing Magazine is that for everythousand dollars spent on hardware re-search and development, perhaps a coupleof pennies are spent on the enabling tech-nologies for pen products such as theTablet PC. As a result, areas like handwrit-ing recognition, ink processing, digitizers,etc. have seen very little progress over thepast the years. Are you concerned aboutthis, and do you think we’ll see some moreinvestment in those areas?

Alex Loeb: The Tablet PC has been avision for Microsoft and many in the indus-try for some time. I agree that realizingthis vision has taken some time, in partsince developing pen-based technologies- both on the hardware and software side- can be very difficult. While I can’t speakfor other companies, Microsoft has neverstopped investing in pen technologiessuch as digital ink, handwriting recogni-tion and display technologies likeClearType. In fact, over the course of thepast ten years we have had so manypeople from across the company focusedon the Tablet PC - from Microsoft Re-search, to the Office and Windows groups,

to our Developer Tools group - that ourtotal financial commitment to-date is verydifficult to quantify. We are optimistic thatTablet PCs will drive a renewed level ofinvestment in pen-based technologies,and are very encouraged by the level of

Q&A with Microsoft's Alex Loeb (by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

Bill Gates and Jeff Raikes demoing the Tablet PC



http://www.microsoft.com/win-dowsxp/tabletpc/hardware.asp)are surprisingly simple. Therequirements cover only fivetechnologies: active digitizer,power management, screenrotation, docking and legacyports, as follows:

ACTIVE DIGITIZER. All TabletPCs must use an active digitizerwith a resolution of at least 600dpi, a data rate of at least 100points per second, and an accu-racy of 2 mm or better. Theserequirements are driven by twomain needs: “mouseover”(hover) and high-quality inking.Refer to the July 2001 article formore information.

POWER MANAGEMENT.There are three separate re-quirements, as follows:

(1) A Tablet PC must resumefrom suspend in two seconds(this is about how long it takessomeone to resume using aspiral-bound paper notebook).

(2) A Tablet PC must last for72 hours in suspend (to ensurepreservation of data).

(3) A Tablet PC must automat-ically enter hibernation if thebattery becomes exhaustedwhile in suspend (also to ensurepreservation of data).

SCREEN ROTATION. A TabletPC must be able to rotate thescreen image between landscapeand portrait modes at the touch abutton (without rebooting). Thisallows the user to use whichevermode is appropriate (e.g., land-scape for PowerPoint or portraitfor Word) with zero effort.

DOCKING. A Tablet PC mustsupport “Grab-and-Go Dock-ing.” This means that the TabletPC must be able to be removedfrom a dock without warning,even if it’s in the middle ofwriting a file to an externalstorage device such as an IEEE-1394 hard disk. As anotherexample, if the Tablet PC isrunning an application in full-screen mode with a keyboard,the user must be able to removeit from the dock without warning

and then return the applicationto windowed mode using just apen.

LEGACY-FREE. A Tablet PCmust be legacy-free. It cannothave any external parallel, serial,PS/2, game or FDD ports, and theoperating system must not seeany of the standard hardwareaddresses (e.g., COM1) associ-ated with those ports. The latterrequirement disallows the pro-posed docking strategy in theJuly 2001 article that suggestedbringing out legacy portsthrough a docking connectorand simply omitting the connec-tors from the Tablet PC. The onlyallowable method of supportinglegacy ports in a Tablet PCdocking station is to convertthem from USB or IEEE-1394.

Hardware RecommendationsMicrosoft kept the list of hard-ware requirements very short inorder to allow innovation by theOEMs. However, Microsoft hasmade a number of “hardwarerecommendations” that carrysignificant weight. They are asfollows:

LCD RESOLUTION. The LCDshould have a minimum resolu-tion of XGA. An XGA Tablet PC inportrait mode provides 768 pixelshorizontally, which is close to theminimum resolution in use forweb browsing today (SVGA, at800 pixels wide). XP Tablet’s userinterface will be optimized for awidth of 768 pixels.

LCD DENSITY. The LCDshould have a minimum densityof 120 dots per inch (dpi). A10.4” XGA LCD has 123 dpi, sothis is seen as the optimum LCDfor a Tablet PC. The LCD densityrecommendation is drivenprimarily by the need for high-quality inking. A 12.4” XGA LCDhas only 106 dpi, which is tech-nically below the minimum, butMicrosoft has said that it’sacceptable because there are

response from computer manufacturers and software vendors.

PCM: The name Tablet PC implies, of course, a tablet or slate.Recently, we have seen more and more mention and emphasis onconvertibles, standard notebooks with screens that rotate aroundand fold flat, or perhaps regular notebooks with a digitizer. Weare afraid that this increasing emphasis on convertibles willrelegate the actual tablet designs into a lesser role and result inthe Tablet PC project degenerating into just a notebook add-onthat people will reject because of the extra price. Your thoughts?

Alex Loeb: We expect that both the pure slate and the convert-ible form factors will be successful. Users will have a wide varietyof machines to choose from, and will be able to select the modelthat is right for them, based on their particular needs. Each designhas its own unique benefits - the slate offers users an ultra slim andlightweight design, and the ability to easily dock to gain access to afull keyboard and mouse. The convertible is slightly larger design,but offers immediate access to an attached keyboard. Regardlessof the design, we wanted to give all users the benefit of the TabletPC, whether their task is keyboard intensive or not.

PCM: With PC sales stagnating and notebook sales growthslowing, the industry is looking for the “next big thing.” A Mi-crosoft slide shown at a presentation in Taipei last Decembersized the total 2004 laptop market at 43 million units and set forththe assumption that Tablet PC may be 25% of those laptops plus5% of desktops, resulting in a over 17 million (Tablet) PC opportu-nity. What are your projections for Tablet PC?

Alex Loeb: As with any new product, it’s difficult to estimateexactly how quickly the Tablet PC will be adopted. We believethat many will see value in replacing their current laptops rightaway, while others will replace their laptops with Tablet PCsover the course of their company’s normal replacement cycle. Inthe near term, we see a significant percentage of the ultra-portable market moving to the Tablet PC by the end of 2003. Inthe longer term, we see the majority of portable PC shipped tobe Tablet PCs within 5 years.

PCM: Anything else you would like to add?

Alex Loeb: I’d like to reiterate that Microsoft is highly commit-ted and invested in making the Tablet PC a success. We arecontinuing to work closely with our industry partners, and areexcited to see the tremendous innovation that the Tablet PC isdriving. In addition to compelling new hardware designs, weexpect to see a whole host of new software applications basedon the Tablet PC platform. We have released a complete softwaredevelopment kit with a rich set of development tools, and a num-ber of key software developers have already begun to extendtheir application based on the Tablet PC. Microsoft, along withour partners, is looking forward to bringing the results of this workto market when we launch the Tablet PC later this year. ◆


no other resolutions available inthe 12.1” size, and almost allultraportable laptops use 12.1”LCDs. Note that an 8.4” SVGALCD has 119 dpi, which is veryclose to the minimum, but inportrait mode it’s only 600 pixelsacross, which will cause prob-lems with XP Tablet’s userinterface.

HARDWARE BUTTONS. ATablet PC should have a mini-mum of five programmablehardware buttons plus a sixthFunction button. The buttons canbe used for hardware functionssuch as adjusting backlightbrightness, to produce key-strokes such as Backspace orReturn, or to launch applications.

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS.Microsoft’s other recommenda-tions can be grouped togetherunder the general heading of“good ultraportable laptopdesign,” as follows:

● High-performance CPU● Good video performance in both

landscape and portrait modes● Long battery life (4 hours min)● As thin as possible (0.7” to 1”)● As light as possible (under 3 lbs)● Preferably no fan● Wireless-enabled (good

support for IEEE 802.11b)● Sophisticated yet simple

docking

Tablet PC LCDsAt WinHEC 2001 and the June2001 Tablet PC conference,Microsoft strongly encouragedthe OEMs to use a variety ofLCDs sizes. However, duringthe last eight months, econom-ics intervened. In order to usean active digitizer, a sensorgrid (a 0.5-mm PCB) must beinserted between theLCD/backlight assembly andthe LCD’s driver electronicsPCB. Inserting a grid into astandard LCD is a time-con-suming, expensive and poten-tially damaging process. As analternative, Toshiba decided tocreate a version of their stan-dard 10.4” XGA LCD whichincludes a “pocket” for thedigitizer sensor grid. Thismakes it much easier for anOEM to assemble a Tablet PC.Consequently, more than 75%of the Tablet PC OEMs areusing Toshiba’s 10.4” XGA LCD.

This means that there maynot be as much product differ-entiation between Tablet PCsas Microsoft had hoped. Themain differentiation may turnout to be form-factor (convert-ible versus pure tablet) ratherthan screen size. Most of theremaining 25% of the OEMs areplanning to use 12.1” LCDs,even in the absence of a pock-et version. Since all but one ofthe ten ultraportable laptopscurrently on the market are12.1”, there’s a strong market-ing argument for making a

12.1” Tablet PC. One OEM isusing an 8.4” SVGA LCD, but asnoted above, it may createuser interface problems. Noneof the Tablet PC OEMs areusing 13.3” or 14.1” LCDs be-cause generally they’re just toolarge and heavy for an arm-held portable product.

Transflective TFT LCDs areinteresting to those OEMs whofocus on vertical applications(such as Fujitsu), but most of theTablet PC OEMs aren’t going touse them. After all, there is onlyone mainstream laptop on themarket today with a transflec-tive screen (the NEC VersaDayLite), and it’s rumored not tobe selling very well. The obviousconclusion is that there still isn’tany significant demand foroutdoor readability in a laptop-class device. Microsoft’s posi-tion on transflective TFT LCDs isthat the current generationsimply isn’t bright enough in-doors (in transmissive mode) tobe acceptable.

Other HardwareEight months ago, only Trans-meta was playing in the TabletPC CPU game. By midsummer,both Intel and VIA had jumpedin. Intel showed their TabletPC reference design (using aPentium III ULV CPU) at theIntel Development Forum (IDF)conference in August and atComdex. VIA showed theirreference design (using the

VIA C3 CPU) at Comdex. Themajority of Tablet PCs will useIntel CPUs, a few will useTransmeta CPUs, and (so far)only VIA will use VIA’s CPU.Those Tablet PCs using Trans-meta represent good news forthe beleaguered CPU vendor,who has so far been unable toland any design wins outsideof the Japanese subnotebookmarket.

The video controller arenatells a similar story. Eightmonths ago, only Silicon Mo-tion (SMI) of Taiwan was in thegame, offering their Lynx-EM+(2D) and Lynx-3DM (3D) videocontrollers. ATI jumped induring the summer with theircurrent 3D MOBILITY RADEONlaptop video controllers and anew rotation driver called“TabletVision,” announced atComdex. Portrait Displays hasalso jumped in with their Pivotrotation driver. The Tablet PCswill be split between SMI andATI, with a third dark-horsevideo controller vendor ap-pearing as a surprise. Rotationwill similarly be split betweenSMI’s driver, ATI’s driver andPortrait Display’s Pivot.

Finally, in the active digitizerspace, FinePoint Innovations(finepointinnovations.com) andWacom (wacom.com) are com-peting head-to-head for designwins in the Tablet PCs. Bothvendors appear to be winningsome. A few new Taiwanesedigitizer vendors have entered

A14

Yes, but what do those Tablet PC OEM/ODMs know about pens?COMPANY PREVIOUS PEN TABLET EXPERIENCEAcer NoneCompaq Several versions of the Concerto convertible in mid 1990sFIC Current AquaPAD webpadFujitsu PC 17 generations of pen tablets over nine yearsLG Electronics NoneNEC Versa convertible in the mid 1990s; webpad for Japanese marketPAD Products NoneSony Recently discontinued VAIO Slimtop was a non-portable pen tabletTatung Several webpadsToshiba T100 and T200 pen tablets in the mid 1990sViewSonic Current ViewPad 1000 pen tablet and ViewPad 100 webpadWistron None



the game, but they don’t appearto be able to meet Microsoft’sspecifications with their initialproducts.

What’s NextThe next milestone in the longmarch of the Tablet PC fromconception to shipping productare the CeBIT show (held inMarch in Hannover, Germany)and the TECHXNY show (former-ly PC Expo, held June 25-27 in

New York City). Nearly all of theTaiwanese OEM/ODMs willhave prototype hardware ondisplay at CeBIT, and some ofthe unannounced OEMs maychoose TECHXNY as the forumto announce their Tablet PCproducts.

Looking back over the lasteight months, while the programhas moved forward substantial-ly, nothing much has changedfrom the viewpoint of risk. Mostof the risks I identified in the

July 2001 article are still pre-sent, as follows:• Significant possibility of lowinitial market demand and/orproduct acceptance• Resistance to “a laptopwithout a keyboard” (for thepure tablet OEMs)• Inadequate docking solutions• Insufficiently differentiatedproducts• Steep learning curve forOEMs and ODMs who havenever built a pen computer

• Microsoft may not get thedetails of the user interfaceright the first time• Handwriting recognition maynot be good enough• Possibility of insufficientWindows application compati-bility• XP Tablet 1.0 may be a typical“Version 1” Microsoft product

In the July 2001 article onTablet PCs in Pen ComputingMagazine, I estimated the prob-ability of Version 1 of the TabletPC crashing and burning at 50%.Eight months later, my estimateof the probability of a real crashand burn (i.e., total marketrejection of the Tablet PC) hasdecreased quite a bit due to thepresence of convertibles. How-ever, the probability of sellingsubstantially less than thepredicted 500,000 to a millionfirst year volume still seems tobe at least 50%. It’s a high-riskpoker game, and OEM/ODMplayers without deep pocketsand substantial staying powermay have to drop out before thesecond round.

Based in Silicon Valley, GeoffWalker is a consultant withWalker Mobile, LLC. Geoff hasworked on the engineering andmarketing of pen computerssince 1989 at GRiD Systems,Fujitsu Personal Systems (nowFujitsu PC) and Handspring. Hecan be contacted at [email protected].

“Mira” is a new wirelessmonitor technology announcedby Bill Gates in his keynotespeech at the Consumer Elec-tronics Show (CES) in Las Vegason January 7, 2002. The basicconcept is an “intelligent dis-play” (a wireless monitor) thatcan be removed from its baseand used around the house whilestill connected wirelessly to thePC. This is a home entertainmentdevice, not a computing device.Imagine watching a movie play-ing from a DVD on the PC, play-ing a game or viewing snapshotson Mira, all while you’re sittingon the couch. Mira looks like alarge Tablet PC.

The core of the intelligentdisplay is a standard monitor-sized LCD (15 to 18 inches),driven by a National Semicon-ductor Geode processor runningCE.Net (see the article on CE.Net

in this issue for more informationon this new OS). Mira is battery-powered. The remote connectionto the PC is made physically viaIEEE 802.11b wireless LAN, and

logically via Mi-crosoft’s RDP(Remote DesktopProtocol). WhenMira is in its desk-top monitor stand,the connection tothe PC is made viaa standard monitorcable. The human

interface on Mira is a touchpanel (passive resistive digitizer).Touch is acceptable in thisapplication (versus the activedigitizer that’s required in aTablet PC) because Mira isn’tintended to be used for input-intensive tasks such as takingnotes in a meeting. It’s a homeentertainment device – input will

typically be a few taps here andthere. In essence, Mira is aportable, pen-based “thin client,”connected to a home PC as theserver. The table below com-pares Mira to Tablet PCs, pentablets, CE tablets, webpads andthin clients. (See the “TabletTaxonomy” in the January issueof Pen Computing for moreinformation about how to classifypen tablet devices.)

Mira isn’t new technology.Everything in it has been aroundfor at least a few years. It’s aclassic Microsoft product: exist-ing technology that’s nicelypackaged, well-positioned withstrong marketing spin, anddefined as a platform on whichOEMs, IHVs and ISVs can devel-op products. It’s a reasonablestep forward in Microsoft’s latesteffort to make the PC the centerof home entertainment.

Introducing Microsoft’s “Mira”

SPEC MIRA TABLET PC PEN TABLET CE TABLET WEBPAD THIN CLIENT

PC No Yes Yes No No No

Operating System CE.Net with RDP XP Tablet XP, 2000, NT, 9X CE 3.0 CE 3.0, Linux or QNX CE 3.0 with RDP or ICA

CPU NS Geode Pentium III Pentium III StrongARM StrongARM StrongARM or NS Geode or NS Geode

Display 15”-18” LCD 10.4”-12.1” LCD 8.4”-13.3” LCD 5.5”-8.4” LCD 8.4”-10.4” LCD Various LCD & CRT

Digitizer Touch Active Touch Touch Touch None

User Interface Any Windows Any Windows Vertical Windows Vertical CE Web browser Server application application application applications Windows

Local Applications Not yet Yes Yes Yes No No

Connection Home PC Anything Anything Anything Internet Server

Wireless Integrated WLAN (802.11b) Integrated WLAN and Integrated NoWLAN (802.11b) via PC card WLAN & WAN WAN via PC card WLAN (802.11b)


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