Later today, Microsoft will hold a press conference to announce or say something. Microsoft pulled together the Los Angeles event rather quickly, but is teasing it rather bluntly: “This will be a major Microsoft announcement — you will not want to miss it.” What the major announcement is, we aren’t sure, but the rumor mill is getting awfully specific.
Last week, we heard that Microsoft may launch its own tablet, but TechCrunch believes Barnes & Noble is involved. Back in April, Microsoft and B&N called a truce in its patent battle over the Nook readers’ use of Android, and entered into a “strategic partnership” — a $300 million in a joint business with B&N. At the time, I called it an “Android power grab” by Microsoft. You can read all about Microsoft’s tactics, and the lawsuit between it and Barnes & Noble in that article.
Could the fruits of this union be ready for picking after only two months? TechCrunch’s sources say that the joint operation between the two companies may be named and the device shown could be a Barnes & Noble tablet with Xbox Live streaming capabilities. If not, many other rumors point to some sort of Windows tablet
We’ll find out all of this soon enough. Though the event will take place in Los Angeles, Microsoft has yet to announce the exact place. The announcement will happen at 3:30pm Pacific time today.
Story originally published at 9:40am ET.
Update 10:30am: Business Insider, which is about as trustworthy as TechCrunch, says Barnes & Noble is not involved in today’s announcement. More as it becomes available.
Update 2:30pm: John has written an article related to this news: 3 ways a Microsoft tablet will change Xbox.
Update 3:30pm: ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley has aggregated some rumors which hint that today’s announcement may be a new tablet-like controller for the Xbox 360 that uses Microsoft’s Surface technology. This is odd since E3 just happened and that’s where gaming announcements usually happen. None of these rumors appear to come from particularly reputable sources. We’ll find out in about three hours.
Update 8:30pm: Microsoft has announced the Surface tablets! A line of Microsoft Windows 8 tablets with covers that double as keyboards. We also have Pictures of the Surface tablets.
They are handing out little slips that say “5:20pm” on them and telling people that it means something significant which they will find out about later, apparently.
Xbox 520, possibly?
AllThingsD is reporting that Microsofts new tablet will use hardware that Microsoft designed, rather than a 3rd party company. So this could be their attempt at copying Apple by producing both the OS and the hardware side of things.
Yeah, definitely. That is what the earlier rumor suggested late last week. Would a strategy like this hurt Microsoft’s standings with its hardware partners though?
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/another-ipad-killer-microsoft-set-to-launch-a-tablet-to-rival-ipad-next-week-report-says/
My guess is that Microsoft will still allow 3rd party manufacturers to build tablets based on Windows 8. I would be super surprised to see Microsoft give up the potential revenue from licensing their OS.
Yeah, that would be a shocker. But if you’re a potential Windows 8 tablet maker, you have to be a bit bothered that you may have Microsoft to compete with, especially since its tablet could be considered “the” Windows 8 tablet. This is assuming Microsoft doesn’t bungle it like Google usually does with its Nexus devices.
Good point. Google has not helped things with their own strategy either.