Bill Gates Announces First Tablet PCs

March 26, 2001

A little over 4 months after announcing that Tablet PCs would be the future, in his keynote at the 2001 Windows Hardware and Engineering Conference (WinHEC) Bill Gates announces Tablet PC support from Acer, Compaq, Fujitsu, Sony and Toshiba. Microsoft’s Tablet PC initiative made a lot of noise and had hardware manufacturers salivating at the thought of a new category of computers to sell after the post Y2k downturn in sales, but for a variety of factors never gained mainstream acceptance. It was not until Apple introduced the iPad in 2010 that mainstream tablet computing actually became a reality.