That's true, but I wonder how much better Microsoft's tablet strategy would have fared 5, 10 years ago had they not been developing essentially a tablet version

That's true, but I wonder how much better Microsoft's tablet strategy would have fared 5, 10 years ago had they not been developing essentially a tablet version of Windows. (It's hard to know just how sticky the iPad would actually be if, say, there had never been an iPhone. The iPhone established iOS and Apple as the best choice in non-computer computers for consumers. For the sake of argument, though, let's assume the iPad would be just as successful regardless of the success of the iPhone.) So, back to the original argument -- MS was busy making Windows on a tablet computer. The failure of this effort can probably be attributed to two main points: 1 - The tablet computer hardward tended to suck for a lot of people. Bulky, slow, stylus-based, etc. This is the point you're making. 2 - As Apple an iOS have shown us, people don't necessarily want [Desktop OS] on their tablet. They just want a great tablet experience, even if that means throwing away years worth of desktop paradigms. As hackers, we can see the similarities between OS X and iOS, but to your average user, there's almost nothing similar between iOS and OS X. I think point #2 could have been done by MS 10 years ago, had they had stumbled upon the same happy accident that I think hit Apple with the iPhone and then iPad: a dedicated phone OS works much better on a tablet than a tablet-versioned desktop OS. We can probably trace this back even further to the original iPod, with Apple gaining a lot of knowledge about what people like and dislike on portable electronic devices. In summary: while you're right, MS's tablet ambitions were hindered by the hardware-of-the-day, I think stcredzero is more right: had Microsoft's execution been better, they wouldn't have been held back by lesser hardware.