New Windows-powered tablet or slate devices — small, hand-held, wireless computers — are in the pipeline from Acer Inc, Dell Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Toshiba Corp, Sony Corp and a dozen other PC makers, Ballmer said.

Apple’s iPad, launched in April, has already sold more than 2 million units worldwide, and threatens to take customers away from Microsoft-dominated desktop computing. Microsoft also announced that online auction firm eBay Inc, tech services company Fujitsu Ltd and PC maker Dell are among companies testing Microsoft’s new Windows Azure platform appliance, which lets customers implement Microsoft’s newest ‘cloud’ server technology in its own data centers.