That would make it $150 cheaper than the lowest-cost version of the iPad. The Vizio Via does look an awful lot like the iPad from the front: it includes an 8-inch screen, a1-GHz processor, a front (but no rear) camera, 802.11g/n wireless, and integrated GPS.

An important feature of this device is Via Plus, which is intended to act in concert with the company’s line of televisions and offer some neat integration such as viewing of content across devices and a remote-control featuee.

We’re still not sure what version of Android this tablet’s going to run — Walmart’s placard isn’t too specific on what’s inside of this bad boy. But the price sounds right, and Via Plus could be a point of differentiation in a market full of me-too tablets.

The Redmond company has supposedly called on Texas Instruments and several Taiwanese manufacturers to make the device a reality. And why not? What better way to market your brand new OS and highlight its features than your own device?

Now, is it a good idea for Microsoft? That’s up for debate. To date, the Xbox 360 is the only success that the company has had at retail outside of accessories such as mice and (of course) software. The Zune music player and the Microsoft Kin phone are two of its most notable failures.

If Digitimes’ rumor is the real deal, I think Microsoft should launch this device alongside Windows 8 to give it the most pop. Here’s my suggestion to Redmond: bring this device to Windows 8 launch events. The launch of the OS is going to be a big deal — akin to the 95 and XP launches – so make sure that Microsoft staffers are demonstrating the hot new  Windows 8 features on a Microsoft tablet. In other words, build buzz not only about the OS itself, but the product you created to show it off.

I think it’s a good idea, but it needs to be done right. Can Microsoft do it?

Let’s face it, CES 2011 was a sea of tablets from just about every company known to man. I’ve heard some accounts that the number of devices shown off the show was near a hundred, so it’s obvious some will fail in the marketplace or not even see the light of day.

Now, it could be argued that most of what’s new in the the iPad 2 involves adding features such as cameras and a dual-core processor that are becoming default tablet checklist items. But even if the iPad 2 isn’t the tablet with the most features or the fanciest specs, it’s the most reasonably priced one.

Moskowitz said that JP Morgan expects a staggering 81 million tablets to be manufactured this year alone, with only about 47.9 million actually getting shipped to retailers. Even if the manufacturers miss JP Morgan’s projections on production by 20%, there will still be an oversupply of nearly 36% — quite a few manufacturers may be about to take a financial bath.

Another risk is to parts suppliers. These folks will be struggling to meet demand at first, then may be stuck with components they can’t sell later. While this may be a bad thing for the suppliers, it could be good for the consumer: oversupply will cause component prices to drop, and may translate into lower tablet prices later this year and into 2012.

Just a side thought: I’m willing to be that Black Friday 2011 may be about the ridiculous prices for tablets — these companies are going to need to get rid of all that excess inventory somehow.

The device will have a 7-inch screen and run on a 1GHz processor, and include a front and back facing camera for video-conferencing. Tim adds that his source also says RIM plans to add Flash support to the device, complete with a hardware-based Flash accelerator. If true, it certainly would be interesting to see how Apple responds, given it has been so adamantly against Flash.

No further details have been given about any possible date of launch, but speculation is that it would be released during the holiday season. “Seasonal buying has done wonders for devices like the Motorola Droid which launched during last year’s holiday season and went on to become the best-selling Android phone to date,” Tim writes.

I’m not sure what to make of any potential BlackBerry-powered tablet, or venture a guess on how well it might do. But I think it would probably be a worthy alternative to the iPad for enterprise environments that already employ RIM’s line of smartphones.

An upgrade to the current model is due at a $200 price point next month. This will be followed by a touchscreen version of the XO laptop in 2011 at a price point of around $150, and finally the tablet which would make its way to market the following year.The tablet would be made of flexible plastic and would be a drastic departure from the current design of the laptop, officials say.

OLPC has struggled recently as the company was forced to lay off 50 percent of its workforce earlier this year. This likely had a lot to do with the worsening economy, which hit the tech sector fairly hard. But the initiative is trudging on, determined to complete its mission of providing technology to children in the developing world. Admirable, but of course a bit costly.

I for one am super curious as to how these folks are going to pull this off. I know you can’t tell much from pictures, but that looks like an awfully advanced device. How are you going to be able to build something like that for $100? I understand that advancements in technology these days are moving faster and faster, but we don’t even have products like this available to the general public right now, much less underprivileged kids around the world.

Hopefully this isn’t going to end up as vaporware, but right now it sure looks like it.

That said, the Tablet PC, which turns seven years old this month, always felt like a doomed platform, at least if the benchmark of success was wide, ongoing mainstream acceptance. A few thoughts on why after the jump.

Microsoft’s irrational exuberance. When I was briefed on the new platform back at the Comdex 2001 show, I asked a Redmondian exec how popular he thought it would be. He told me that he thought that nearly all laptops would be tablets within five years. That seemed like a preposterous notion even then. And if your goals are out of whack with reality it’s hard to accomplish much of anything.

Windows wants a keyboard. Windows needs a keyboard. I’ve never seen a version of Windows–be it Tablet PC or Windows Mobile or the weird, dead-on-arrival Windows Smart Displays–that dispensed with physical QWERTY keys in a way that made sense. Tablet aficionados would dispute this, but Microsoft’s pen interfaces have always felt bolted-on to me.

The hardware often felt like a kludge. At Comdex 2000, Bill Gates showed a prototype Tablet that looked like it was a truly new type of device. Most of the Tablets that actually shipped, however, felt more like standard PCs with the minimum amount of rejiggering required to run Microsoft’s Tablet PC OS.

If the boss loves it, worry. The mere fact that Gates used two consecutive Comdexes (Comdexii?) to tout Tablets as a Next Big Thing was a bad sign–a remarkable percentage of products featured in Gates keynotes have failed to amount to much of anything. Bill Gates himself is clearly a sincere Tablet devotee; you gotta wonder whether his personal enthusiasm created a mini-reality distortion field that caused Microsoft to devote more attention to Tablets than the market warranted.

Tablet PCs never got a “version 3.0.” That old saw about Microsoft products only getting good when they reach version 3.0? It’s largely true. Tablets may have gotten three versions in a technical sense, but it’s clear that Microsoft was losing interest by the time its second version rolled around. With Windows Vista, Microsoft rolled Tablet functionality into mainstream versions of the OS, but by then, the whole Tablet platform was atrophying. (Side note: I just attended a Microsoft workshop on Windows 7: Tablet PC didn’t come up once.)

The Chicken-or-the-Egg conundrum. If Microsoft had ever come out with a better Tablet OS, hardware manufacturers might have supported it more wholeheartedly. If hardware manufacurers had ever shown more commitment to making Tablets, Microsoft might have poured more resources into the OS. Instead, the industry’s lukewarm response to the platform (after an initial flurry of products) seemed to lead Microsoft to scale back its ambitions.

I used the word “death” in reference to Tablets in this post’s title–that’s probably too harsh given that there are still Tablets on the market and I’m not predicting that they’ll disappear entirely any time soon. But Ray Ozzie is right: They’re a niche. And they were never likely to become anything but one.

Ozzie, incidentally, brought up Tablets because he was explaining that the multi-touch features in Windows 7 wouldn’t be nichey. Anyone have any thoughts on whether touch-driven Windows will turn out to be a bigger deal then pen-driven Windows ever was?