Microsoft’s Mundie: Tablets may not last, future of desktops is “the room”

Microsoft doesn't make tablets because they only see a place for the smartphone and the TV and will interact with Kinect. The prefer the future "Room" instead of the windowless tablet.

I'm not sure I've got it though...

A post from VentureBeat by Devindra Hardawar has the whole story. Here is a part:

Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie isn’t afraid to go against the grain when it comes to tablets.
Speaking at a lunch in Sydney, Australia, Mundie said that he was unsure if tablets like the iPad would stick around, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. He went on to discuss how he viewed the future of computer interfaces, which included entire rooms replacing the traditional desktop.
Mundie seems to have more faith in smartphones than tablets. He said that smartphones will eventually “become your most personal computer” (this is already true for me, and most others who are never more than 6 feet from their phones). He also made a distinction between mobile and portable devices, something that I think has gotten muddy since the advent of the iPad. “”Mobile is something that you want to use while you’re moving, and portable is something that you move and then use,” he said.
Mundie’s big beef with tablets, it seems, is that he’s unsure if the space between mobile devices (smartphones) and traditional mobile devices (laptops) will continue to exist. Tablets now hover in that nether space, which is constantly under attack from larger and more powerful smartphones, as well as cheaper ultraportable laptops.
Despite the massive growth in tablets at the moment, mainly due to the iPad, it’s definitely worth questioning just how useful these devices will be in the long term. In my apartment, I have both an iPad and a Samsung Galaxy Tab for testing, but I rarely pick either one up for casual web browsing. Of course, the situation is probably different for consumers who don’t make a living working on the Internet.
Mundie’s hesitation around tablets may be why Microsoft has been so slow to adopt a tablet initiative that doesn’t involve desktop versions of Windows.

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