Three years ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a keynote presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show where he showed off a Slate PC, the company's interpretation of a modern-day tablet. It wasn't anything special, basically just the regular desktop version of Windows 7 running on a big touchscreen device. A few weeks after Ballmer's keynote, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPad, the device that truly kicked off the tablet craze and the one that's still the most popular tablet today. The subtext here is pretty obvious. Before CES 2010, rumors had been building up about a tablet from Apple. No one knew what to really expect.
