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Microsoft NASDAQ:MSFT move into Tablets should have happened earlier

GOOG, AAPL

With its new Surface tablet and Windows 8 operating system, Microsoft Corp. is creating products at the seam between hardware and software, something that “maybe we should have done” earlier, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told the company’s shareholders at its annual meeting Wednesday.

Microsoft this year launched an ambitious redesign of its software for computers, servers, phones and networks, all aimed at serving a new generation of low-power, touch-friendly mobile devices. The company’s 1st computer, the Surface tablet, and the rest of the products were on display for shareholders gathered Wednesday in Bellevue, Wash.

“We’ve launched a set of fantastic new products, and I think positioned Microsoft for an incredible future,” Mr. Ballmer said in prepared remarks, singling out the Surface as “great for work and play” and noting the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system is “off to a great start.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Ballmer acknowledged to shareholders that if Microsoft had moved faster into hardware, then the company wouldn’t be so far behind Apple Inc.’s NASDAQ:AAPL iPad and Android-based tablets from Google Inc. NASDAQ:GOOG.

“Sometimes getting the innovation right across the seam between hardware and software is difficult unless you do both of them,” he said.

The acknowledgment came after a provocative question from a shareholder, who remembered then CEO Bill Gates showing off a tablet a decade ago and calling it “the future of computing.” The shareholder asked how Microsoft intended to more quickly turn its innovations into products in the future.