It's been interesting to read what Steve Balmer thinks of the iPad the past week.

"It's just another PC," he's said.

Well, he's partially right...it's a computerized device, there's an underlying operating system and so on...

However, he's still in denial of the fact Apple was able to do what Microsoft hadn't. Apple made the tablet computer sexy.

There have been Windows tablets around for a substantial part of this past decade, but they've never really gone beyond niche markets, like medicine. Windows tablets have never really taken with the general buying public.

So where is the Windows 7 HP Slate? Sunk.

Sure, some people have brought out Windows 7 tablets in recent weeks, others plan to by the end of the year. Except for one thing. Is a Windows 7 tablet really going to compete against the iPad?

Not with a boot time running into minutes. Not with sluggish resistive touch-screens. Not with thicknesses that make holding them difficult. Simply put, you don't need a desktop or laptop OS on a tablet.

Apple tapped into a particular need of most people to be able to run the things they want without half the need to learn OSes.

Your grandmother doesn't want to know Windows OS or Linux. She wants something that plays music, writes emails, plays videos of her grandkids, all with minimal fuss. A secretary wants something that takes meeting notes which he or she can email off as a PDF or a JPG. A social media person wants something he can hold comfortably, type on quickly and patch a web link into with simple cut-and-paste.

They don't need laptops for this. Smartphones come close, but don't have the screen real estate.

So it's time for Steve Balmer to seriously rethink his company's tablet strategy.

Windows Phone 7 OS might be a better alternative to Windows 7 on a Microsoft tablet. Anything but Windows 7 itself, because it's really only good for desktop and laptop computers. And a tablet is not a netbook. Nor should it be.

So seriously, Mr Balmer, if you want me to contemplate me buying a Windows tablet at all...come up with something that catches my imagination. I've tried a Windows 7 T91MT convertible/tablet. It didn't thrill me.

Show me something different.