Microsoft buoyant about Windows 7 slate computer

With Apple already doing brisk business with its iPad device having notched up 3 million sales in its first 80 days of being available, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has stated that Microsoft have plenty up their sleeves when it comes to releasing their own Windows 7 powered slate-style computing devices later in the year.

Ballmer was suitably upbeat while talking at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington yesterday. "You need to see between us and our hardware (partners), a range of slates and a range of phones that you can take to your customer when they come with this, that or the other random device that's not currently supported by corporate IT," Ballmer said during a suitably frothy webcast.

Any slate device that does emerge is likely to be running Windows 7, which will be in direct competition with the Apple iOS. HP, which has snapped up Palm and its WebOS, will also be throwing their hat into the ring when it comes to producing tablet or slate style computing devices alongside others who have already brought products to market, such as Archos.

"We want to give you a great device, a consumer oriented device, but a device that fits and is manageable with today's enterprise IT solutions," added Ballmer while also addressing the importance of cloud computing.

He made a point of underlining the excitement he feels about the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 software too, while conceding that Windows Mobile missed a trick thanks in the main to poor performance and a clunky user interface.

"On the phone side we missed a generation with Windows Mobile. We really did miss almost a release cycle, but Windows Phone 7 which we had a chance to debut at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year has received really quite remarkable reviews." he said.