Nokia CEO talks up Windows 8 tablet 'opportunity'

Is Nokia reconsidering the release of a tablet? Comments from CEO Stephen Elop suggest the Finnish phone giant might well be.

“There’s a new tablet opportunity coming,” Elop told BusinessWeek. “We see the opportunity. Unquestionably, that will change the dynamics” of the tablet market.

The opportunity? Windows 8, apparently.

When it comes to tablets, Windows 8 is a “supercharged” version of Windows Phone, Elop enthused.

Elop is ex-Microsoft and has already shifted Nokia away from Symbian to Redmond's Windows Phone OS. Tapping the software giant for tablet software would be a logical step forward if Nokia wants to enter the fondleslab market.

The reasons for avoiding Android as a phone OS - it's now too hard to differentiate products - apply equally to the tablet arena.

And Nokia has worked with MS before, on its ill-fated foray into the netbook market: 2009's woefully overpriced, but cute-looking Booklet 3G, which ran windows 7 Starter Edition on an Atom CPU. ®