Tablet PC speaks in tongues, but not all

When devices running the specialised Tablet PC operating system hit the market on November, they'll support English, French, German, Korean, Japanese and both simplified and complex Chinese. However, they won't be able to make heads nor tail out of Spanish or Italian, among other languages.

The Tablet PC operating system is a modified version of Microsoft's Windows XP that has been tweaked so users of computers running the OS can operate their machines with a stylus instead of a mouse and keyboard. Microsoft released the first version of the software to hardware makers earlier this year, with the goal of having devices available by this year's holiday buying season

The software giant has been touting the idea of pen-based computing for years and has been pitching Tablet PC at the past two autumn Comdex trade shows.

Microsoft does not expect handwriting input to replace the keyboard, at least when it comes to languages like English. But the software giant does see a value in giving mobile workers the ability to enter free-form notes.

"I believe you can type faster than you can ink," Microsoft Group Vice President Jeff Raikes said in an interview. "What you can't do is you can't be as expressive."

When it comes to Asian languages, though, pen-based computing takes on a level of practicality. Microsoft's initial choice of languages reflects the heightened need to find a better way than keyboards to enter many Asian languages into a computer. Entering a single character in Korean, Chinese or Japanese typically requires multiple keystrokes.

Many companies, including Microsoft, IBM and Intel, among others, are focusing on Asia for their research on natural interfaces such as speech and handwriting recognition.

As for the languages that are not included, Raikes said it's nothing personal. Microsoft is releasing Tablet PC in the languages in which its handwriting recognition databases are the strongest.

"The recognition takes years to develop in a given language," Raikes said.

Ian Fried writes for News.com