Tablet team member Evan Feldman blogged: "I was part of a small group of people who had a concept presented at the Executive Retreat a couple of weeks ago. The feedback that we got from the execs was to go ahead and build it. So this upcoming week a few people will be shopping around the concept to the OEMs and if one of them (or more) decides to build it, we've got a new and interesting product to put together."

Sources close to the company said Feldman was blogging about the same device to which Gates had referred.

The new hybrid gadget is not a Pocket PC, nor some other kind of PDA. It's not a modified Smartphone. And it's not a personal communicator. It's definitely a mini-Tablet of some sort, sources said.

Since Microsoft itself doesn't build Tablet PCs, the company has been seeking an OEM (or two) to build this new sub-form-factor device. One source suggested that Motion Computing, one of Microsoft's Tablet OEM partners, would be the most likely candidate to build such a machine, as it has done some mini-Tablet prototypes of its own.

When asked whether Motion was considering building such a device, a spokeswoman responded: "I don't have anything for you regarding your product inquiry."

It was at WinHEC 2004 that Microsoft first mentioned that the Tablet team was unsure whether there would be a new mobile version of Longhorn, a Longhorn version of the Tablet PC operating system (or both).

At this year's WinHEC, which kicks off on April 25 in Seattle, Microsoft is expected to offer further clues about the future of Microsoft'sTablet PC operating system and forthcoming form factors.

One WinHEC 2005 session, on "Mainstream Mobile Market Strategies," is set to cover "the evolution of Microsoft Tablet PC into mainstream mobile PCs and provides guidance for how OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and ODMs (original device manufacturers) can think about laptops and emerging mobile form factors."

Earlier this year, Tablet officials confirmed to Microsoft Watch that Microsoft is planning to integrate the handwriting recognition and inking capabilities that are the hallmark of the Tablet OS are definitely moving into Avalon, the Windows presentation subsystem.

Microsoft hired Shawn Van Ness, a principal with the Leszynski Group consultancy, to serve as product manager in charge of integrating the Tablet PC into Avalon and WinFX (Microsoft's evolution of the Win32 programming model), according to Van Ness himself.

On his blog, Van Ness said he considered the Tablet as the "killer platform" for Avalon applications. Why?

"Looking back at all the tablet apps I've created over the past few years, many or most were full-screen affairs, with plenty of custom-rendered widgets (the bog standard common controls don't work well with a pen, by and large), nonrectangular regions, and semitransparent popup panels... Developing those sorts of apps with C# and WinForms v1 was like performing ice sculpture with a chainsaw. It was possible to produce results, but you had to be miraculously talented, every single moment of every single day. Hopefully, if we do our job right, Avalon will make the job a little easier," Van Ness wrote.

For now, it's still not clear whether there will be a Longhorn version of the Tablet PC operating system or whether Microsoft will decide to integrate all the current Tablet functionality into Longhorn, obviating the need for a stand-alone SKU.

(This is an updated version of articles which appeared in the February 17 and April 7, 2005, issues of the Microsoft Watch newsletter. Want to see what other Microsoft news nuggets you might have missed? Sign up today for a free two-week trial subscription to Microsoft Watch.)