If the rumors are true, the release of the Apple Table would have been another masterful stroke that has caught Microsoft with it’s corporate pants down!

If you recall, touch-enabled computers, commonly known as Tablet PCs, have been a computing segment that Microsoft has virtually created, and has nurtured for these past years.

However, in typical Microsoft fashion, it left the design of the physical devices to OEMs who then proceeded to eviscerate that vision, and bring to market devices that were either underpowered or overpriced, the exception being the tx-line of systems from HP.

Adding insult to injury, Microsoft came out with a series of smaller touch-enabled devices, originally codenamed Origami. By the time the products were released, the unwieldy moniker, UMPC, for Ultra-Portable PC, was given to the devices. The product category didn’t survive the name, and mercifully died off.

Meanwhile, Apple came out with the iPhone, and its phone-crippled sibling, the iPod Touch, both of which have archived iconic status in popular culture.

One of the innovative things about the iPhone was how well Apple courted developers for applications. While having apps was not a new thing per se, Apple made it an integral part of the iPhone experience and ownership, and currently touts the 100,000 app number – no mean feat – in ads. If the 80/20 rule is applied, that means that only 20,000 apps can be useful. Wouldn’t Windows Mobile like to have 20,000 apps total?

That though, wasn’t the endgame.

The stratagem Apple had in mind, was to bring the populace kicking and screaming into familiarity with touch-enabled devices.

Imagine this, right out the box, the iPodTablet will have access to 100K apps!

100,000 applications!

That makes the device usable from Day 1.

Can you imagine the sweetness the network effects of such a device will bring to Apple?

If the iTablet or whatever Infinite Loop decides to call it is successful, a direct line from the iPhone/iPod Touch can be drawn.

When that happens, feel free to blame Microsoft for the following.

1. Lack of an aspirational reference design, even if it is no more than a limited edition product.
2. The incredibly hidebound product/category nomenclature from Microsoft.
3. Inept messaging.

Really, is Microsoft so myopic?

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