Microsoft is planning a tablet computer to rival Apple's iPad

Various reports suggest Microsoft is set to unveil in the coming week branded hardware that will in short put it in the race to wrest away tablet industry market share from Apple's iPad which currently dominates 75pc of the tablet market.

The hardware side of the personal computing

Traditionally Microsoft has left the hardware side of the personal computing and mobile computing industries to OEM partners.

Having some control over the hardware in the tablet market is a move in other words beginning to make sense for the iPad’s rivals. Google is expected to reveal this month its own-branded Android tablet in partnership with ASUS.

Who has partnered with Microsoft? A likely contender could be Samsung which has in the past produced delightful tablet/PC combos based on Windows 7 and has been in direct conflict with Apple over patents concerning its Android-based Galaxy Tab. It too wants to strike back at Apple and in fairness the Galaxy Tab has captured a sizeable chunk of the tiny sliver of marketshare that the iPad has or rather decently ceded to rivals.

Another contender could be Dell which, in spite of being bounced around in the market with various attempts at Android smartphones and Android tablets, is everything considered a stalwart supporter of Microsoft having been one of the earliest beneficiaries of the Wintel alliance in the 1990s and which has built up a sizeable enterprise server and consulting business with Microsoft cloud innovation at its core.