As virtually the entire consumer electronics industry throws its weight behind tablet computers, Microsoft’s global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie said today that he did not know whether the booming new category was here to stay.

Speaking at a lunch held in Sydney by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), Mundie, who reports directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, said he did not know whether tablets like the iPad would “remain with us or not”.

Mundie said he believed the smartphone “as it emerges more will become your most personal computer”, while laptops would occupy a space he dubbed the “portable desk”.

As virtually the entire consumer electronics industry throws its weight behind tablet computers, Microsoft’s global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie said today that he did not know whether the booming new category was here to stay.

Speaking at a lunch held in Sydney by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), Mundie, who reports directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, said he did not know whether tablets like the iPad would “remain with us or not”.

Mundie said he believed the smartphone “as it emerges more will become your most personal computer”, while laptops would occupy a space he dubbed the “portable desk”.

“I think there’s an important distinction – and frankly one we didn’t jump on at Microsoft fast enough – between mobile and portable,” he said.

“Mobile is something that you want to use while you’re moving, and portable is something that you move and then use.

“These are going to bump into one another a little bit and so today you can see tablets and pads and other things that are starting to live in the space in between. Personally I don’t know whether that space will be a persistent one or not.”

Mundie went on to talk about a new type of smartphone technology he had seen in the labs. When the user looks at the phone, “instead of seeing a screen it can beam individual rays of light into your eyes right on your retina … [so] you can look at your phone and see HDTV”.

“I don’t know whether the big screen tablet pad category is going to remain with us or not,” he said.

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