But think of what the tablet means: Small, super-light, instant-on hardware with long battery life; paired with a lean OS and small, fast, and focused apps. You can see some of the tablet/phone learnings leaking into other form factors, like the new Macbook Air. Tablets and phones are just the two current form factors for this new era of always-on, always-at-your-side computing. That's the shift that MS and Intel seem to be struggling with.