Microsoft to announce slates to take on the iPad at CES

(I checked the date.  It says today.)  The NYTimes says that Microsoft is going to announce some iPad competin’ Slates at CES:

Next month, at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft will present a slew of new slates that it hopes will offer some competition to the Apple iPad, which has quickly become the leader in this market.

According to people familiar with Microsoft’s plans, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, is expected to  announce a number of these devices when he takes the stage at C.E.S., showcasing devices built by Samsung and Dell, among a number of other manufacturing partners.

This apparently has been an anual event since 2000.

A decade ago Bill Gates, founder and former chief executive of Microsoft, presented a new class of computing to the world: a Tablet PC that offered a fully functional computer with the “intuitive aspects of pencil and paper.”