There will be two interesting events in the technology sector this week. Tonight comes the unveiling of a new product by Microsoft (MSFT), and on Thursday after the close Oracle (ORCL) will release its financials. Experts expect that Microsoft will launch its own tablet computer, and, if that is correct, then it will be a historic change, because, since it was founded, Microsoft has never entered into direct competition with its customers, the computer manufacturers, with a hardware product of its own. They say that Microsoft is fed up of sitting on the sidelines and watching how Apple has won sole domination of the tablet market, while other computer makers have stood idly by, and tablets are known to be slowly but surely nibbling away at the PC market.

This evening, perhaps, a new era will begin, in which we will have four gorillas, Apple, Google (GOOG), Samsung, and Microsoft, competing head-on in everything: in operating systems and hardware for tablets and smartphones, and in ecosystems, that is to say content, applications, and so on. Google bought Motorola Mobility, and this month it will launch a tablet of its own, while persistent rumors speak of Nokia (NOK) being acquired by its partner, Microsoft.

Samsung, which so far has relied mainly on Google’s Android operating system, is aware of how problematic it is that it does not control the operating systems for its high-selling smartphones and tablets, and so it is working on upgrading its in-house operating system, by the name of Bada. When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPad, in early 2010, he said of the product that it was the most significant and the most exciting for him of all the products Apple had launched since it was founded, and he was right…Read More>>

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