In what clearly is a daringly slow move by Microsoft in the rapidly advancing tablets arena, the company disclosed at the Consumers Electronics Show (CES) that it intends making a deliberate advance in migrating its Windows OS onto tablets.

In his keynote speech at the show, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that despite the fact that the company plans to run Windows on the increasingly popular tablet PC form factor, the plans will be realized only by 2012, because the tablet will not involve Windows Phone 7.

With Microsoft deciding not to follow the Apple and Google direction of putting its mobile operating system on tablets, it is evident that only a limited number amount of Windows 7 tablets will run on the low-powered Intel processors.

Noting that Microsoft’s slow, steady strategy of carving out its own path - rather than following Apple - is a big yet reasonable gamble, veteran technology analyst Rob Enderle said: “It's kind of nice to see Microsoft not copy the leader and bet that in five years, by taking another path, it can come up with something the emphasizes what it does best.”

Meanwhile, among the other announcements which Microsoft made at the CES was that its next Windows version – commonly referred to by many as Windows 8 - will work on ARM-based processors that are used extensively in smartphones and tablets, including the Apple iPad and the Android-based ones.