[cervezas]

I gave the Lenovo/IBM X-41 tablet a try for about 30 minutes a couple of weeks ago, and while I have to hand it to those guys for developing a convertible tablet that weighs 3 lbs and runs for 8 hrs, I couldn't get past the feeling that I was fighting with OneNote to get it to do what I wanted with my handwritten notes. Although the handwriting recognition was pretty good it was too hard to fix the errors that did occur and doing so completely broke the flow of the work, which violates the whole premise of why someone would want to use a tablet. I noticed that even the IBM reps who were trying to sell these things had difficulty with it. I know it can be done much, much better.

I'm hopeful that products from Palm's future "Third Business" will challenge Bill's vision regarding tablets. Tablets need to be smaller, lighter and (on the software side) easier/quicker to work with than a laptop for them to gain wider popularity. Among other things, I think they need to be instant-on/instant-off devices like a Palm PDA. I think Gates understands about the smaller/lighter part, but Hawkins' and Co have a better bead on what it takes to make something like this a pleasure to use. It will be a significant challenge, but I expect MS to continue to fumble on this for a while, so there is an opportunity.