Based on the company's product launches at CES, we already know that ASUS has some big plans for the tablet market. At its press-conference alone, the company showed-off a family of four slates covering the needs of pretty much every potential customer.
But it looks like the company still has something else planned to help give it a leg up in the quest for tablet supremacy. In an interview with IDG News, Chairman Jonney Shih was asked how the company would combat the iPad 2, which is expected to launch sometime in the next few months. Although the exec pointed out that its components had been carefully chosen to counter anything Apple could come up with - namely the increasingly popular Tegra 2 chipset from NVIDIA - he hinted at something else that would set ASUS apart from the pack.
"We will try to provide a 'secret weapon', something we have not shown at this time but closer to the launch time we will show," he teased.
Unfortunately, Shih declined to elaborate, adding only that, "I think it's best not to say now. You will have to wait until the launch".
He also shared his opinions on the future of operating systems for tablets. Although there are plenty of options vying for a slice of the market right now, Shih only sees room for three - iOS, Android and Windows, leaving the likes of MeeGo, webOS and RIM's tablet OS out in the cold. He also prophesised that 2011 would see personal computing move increasingly from the device into the cloud.
Again, it's clear that ASUS has something big planned for the tablet space, but with such a comprehensive portfolio of announced products, out best guess involves a cloud-based software service. Of course, there's no doubt that Shih will be happy to tell us all of the details once the time is right.
