Leaked Morgan Stanley roadmap seems to confirm Windows 8 tablets early next year

Similar to Dell's leaked roadmap, now we have another slider from the investment firm Morgan Stanley that lists the beginning of 2012 as the period when Windows 8 tablets are to break ground for the first time.

Just as a reminder, Windows 8 will be able to run on ARM-based mobile chipsets, and Microsoft has allegedly spared more than a thousand engineers to work on the porting effort. According to some info that leaked over the weekend, the interface will be touch-optimized, depending on the device Win 8 is running on, and the Windows Phone 7 tiled interface might appear on the tablet version.

You will also be able to log in with your Windows Live ID too, meaning tight cloud services integration, plus the installation time should be reduced down to 8 minutes, with 2 minutes timeframe to restore the system to the default settings, if needed. A video clip can be used as your avatar, appearing in the lower right corner, and, if all goes well, we should be seeing the first tablet prototypes with Windows 8 by the end of the summer, and then retail in time for the holidays.

That's the optimistic scenario Microsoft is striving for, but the leaked roadmaps from Dell and Morgan Stanley show that the general availability from major manufacturers won't come until Q1 next year, hopefully as early as CES 2012.

source: Windows8beta via WMPoweruser