There are two main companies in the tablet market: Apple, Google and Microsoft. Microsoft isn't in the tablet market, but has a developer network and enterpris

There are two main companies in the tablet market: Apple, Google and Microsoft. Microsoft isn't in the tablet market, but has a developer network and enterprise traction the others could only dream of. Having seen Windows Phone 7 and some demos of Windows 8, I have to say that as a tablet OS it'll be a lot better than WebOS or QNX in terms of user experience, and going out on a limb would be surprised if it's worse than honeycomb. What will make a massive difference is the ability to retarget your Windows 8 code for desktop and tablet without having to do an awful lot of work. The downside of this is that I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Windows 8 tablet apps are ports from desktop apps that don't fully take advantage of the tablet's capabilities, or address it's drawbacks. However, for things like games it will be incredible - think about DirectX on a tablet with halfway to Xbox 360 level GPUs and XBLA ports. Of course Amazon could compete, fairly or unfairly. To me it makes massive sense for them to remain focused on Kindle and not pollute their own market but to bring Kindle's price down to the point where it can be given away with Prime subscriptions, then go in for a tablet. Having an Amazon table compete with Kindle doesn't sound like a great idea to me.