Chief executive officer of Nokia Corp. said in an interview that at present the company is evaluating different approaches and platforms to enter the market of tablet devices. The company clearly does not want to become just another manufacturer of slates, but plans to create a unique Nokia slate.

"We have a number of options in the tablet computing space given the changing strategy that we have. For example, we could take advantage of Microsoft technology and software and build a Windows-oriented tablet, or we could do things with some of the other software assets that we have. Our team right now is assessing what's the right tablet strategy for Nokia how does that fit in," said Stephen Elop, chief executive officer of Nokia, in an interview with YLE TV-channel.

At present the two most obvious choices for Nokia in terms of tablets are MeeGo as well as Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. However, the company basically quit development of MeeGo and while it did not burn all the bridges, it is not really likely that the company will actually introduce a MeeGo-based commercial product in foreseeable future. At the same time, Microsoft Windows 7's graphics users interface is not tailored for tablet PCs.

In longer-term future - sometimes in late 2012 or early 2013 - Microsoft plans to release its Windows 8 with GUI tailored for various devices, including tablets. Given the fact that Nokia is hardly in a hurry to release its tablet as soon as possible, it may decided to wait.

But for Nokia it does not seem to be a question of time. The company wants to create a unique tablet devices with exclusive features and capabilities, which may mean that it will still consider MeeGo or even Google Android for it. Clearly, Nokia will not be just one of the many.

"There are now over 200 different tablets on the marketplace, only one of them is doing really well. My challenge to the team is I don't want to be the 201st tablet on the market that you cannot tell from all of the others. We have to take a uniquely Nokia prospective and so the teams are working very hard on something that would be differentiating relative to everything else that's going on in the market," said Mr. Elop.

Tags: Nokia, MeeGo, Android, Windows, Windows Phone