25th March 2004 - London - UK - A recent survey by Microsoft UK has found that 70% of independent software vendors (ISVs) will be developing applications for the Tablet PC by end of 2005 and 77% of ISVs believe that Tablet PCs are more suitable for taking advantage of wireless technologies than laptops. The results of the survey were announced at a first-year anniversary event of the launch of the Tablet PC for developers at Microsoft in Reading where a competition for Tablet PC developers to win the chance to launch a new application with technical and marketing support from Microsoft Corporation was kicked-off. The survey highlighted that over a third of developers believe that at least half of their product range would benefit from being Tablet PC enabled today.
Julius Sinkevicius, worldwide Tablet PC product manager at Microsoft Corp, who spoke to over 200 developers at the anniversary event, said: "Tablet PC users can expect creativity to accelerate, especially with the launch of Tablet PC software development kit (SDK) version 1.7, due out in second quarter of this year. The SDK will make it easier for developers to create rich, ink-enabled applications by providing new and improved tools such as support for Web- or HTML-based pages and real-time stylus and ink support."
Today, more than 150 ISVs have already developed and contributed applications to run on the Microsoft Tablet PC Edition platform. In the UK survey conducted in January, over a third of the ISVs believe that the tablet PC killer functionality is its mobility, WiFi capability and portability.
News source: Microsoft
