Nokia has officially confirmed that it is working on a Windows 8 tablet, a day after The Mobile Indian reported the same. The design chief of the Finish company, Marko Ahtisaari has said in an interview that he is spending a third of his time on creating a tablet for the cellphone maker, which would stand out among hundreds of iPad-challengers. He was talking to a Finnish magazine called Kauppalehti Optio.
Earlier, DigiTimes quoting sources in upstream component suppliers has reported that Nokia will team up with Microsoft to venture into the tablet PC market by releasing a 10-inch Windows 8-based tablet PC set on Qualcomm’s dual-core platform in the fourth quarter of 2012 at the earliest.
According to sources, Nokia is expected to outsource production of the 10-inch tablet to Compal Electronics (a Chinese IT manufacturer), with an order of about 2 lakh units for its first shipment batch.
Even Nokia Chief executive officer Steven Elop has confirmed the news by saying, “We are working on it”.
Many analysts believe that Windows 8 can shake up the Apple iPad dominance in the tablet space. With the likes of Nokia, Lenovo and HP planning a Windows 8 tablet launch by year end, the tablet market sure looks ready for a shakeup.