Microsoft wants to provide something "distinctive" to the tablet market

Microsoft has been awfully quiet and dismissive with regards to the booming tablet market, but Microsoft UK director Ashley Highfield has recently come forth to explain why the company has been so mum on the subject.

“We won’t do anything in the tablet market unless we can be distinctive,” said Highfield in a report by Pocket-lint.  In an attempt to avoid releasing “just another tablet,” Microsoft may be holding out until it has something remarkable to announce to the public. Any standout features or hardware would definitely help in distinguishing a potential Microsoft tablet from the growing crowd.

Highfield would neither confirm nor deny that some sort of tablet device is currently in the works at Microsoft, however.

Until then, Microsoft will very likely continue to keep a low profile among tablets. While Windows 7 has been available for tablets, the OS is currently limited to non-ARM processors, and so only devices sporting Intel’s ailing Atom CPUs could support the Windows OS. This may all change by 2012 if Windows 8 goes final, as this next Windows iteration is expected to be ARM compatible as well as tablet optimized.

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