Microsoft has been putting all its effort in Windows 8 development since last year. The company made available the Release Preview of Windows 8 earlier this week, while the Developer Preview was released a long ago. Microsoft's new operating system features a traditional Windows desktop interface as well as Metro UI derived from second generation Windows smartphones, indication that a touch-optimized version of Windows 8 is ready to be featured in a tablet. And now, finally, WIndows 8 tablets have arrived at the Taipei's Computex show.

Bloomberg reported last week that multiple manufacturers including Asus, Toshiba and Acer will unveil Windows 8 tablets at Taipei's Computex Show starting June 5. We don not know about Toshiba, but Asus and Acer have unveiled Windows 8 tablets. Asus announced two Windows 8 tablets titled Tablet 810 and Tablet 610. On the other hand, Acer also showed off two tablets - the Iconia W700 and W510. Many of the specs about these tablet are not known. Howewver, the known specs include 10- to 12-inch displays, Intel Atom or Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and 2GB of RAM. Acer tablets also pack 8 megapixel rear camera sensor.

Other manufactures, including Dell, HP, Lenovo and Nokia, are also expected to release Windows 8 tablets in second half of 2012. Folks at Neowin last month leaked specs of two Windows 8 tablets manufactured by Dell titled Dell Latitude 10 and Dell XPS 12, which feature 10.8- and 12.5-inch display respectively. These tablets are said to boast dual-core Intel Atom processor, 2GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD storage, and will release by the end of 2012.

Talking about Windows 8 tablets, a thought comes to mind that Apple iPad has finally met its match. Windows 8 tablets are far different than any pre-existing tablet and are expected to give a neck-to-neck competition to Apple in the tablet market, something that Android tablets failed to do. Like Windows-powered laptops, Windows 8 tablets will run full-featured Microsoft Office suite and support for physical keyboard and mouse. The tablets also feature full-sized USB ports, along with HDMI, microUSB, microSD and Thunderbolt port.

However, the success factor is mainly based on application support, in which, Apple iPad is going on as a clear winner with over 200,000 tablet-optimized iOS apps. Microsoft will need to attract more app developer (and game developer too) to Windows 8 tablet platform to make it a big hit.