(http://pocketables.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c9ec69e2014e5fb56a84970c-500wi)
Microsoft has been incredibly late to both the smartphone and the tablet game. In fact, it was way back at CES 2010 that Windows Phone 7 was introduced. And all of Microsoft's partners' tablets have been running a modern desktop OS, Windows 7, which hasn't really been successful for touch-based devices.
So when a report from Business Insider came out, detailing what seem to be Microsoft's plans for Windows 8 tablets, it got a lot of people excited about how the company is going to compete with Apple and Google. Among the purported features is a more Apple-esque user interface based on Microsoft's Metro UI. Based on what we've seen already from WP7, Windows 8 (if its UI is indeed based on Metro) should be immensely more popular than the Windows 7 tablets of today.
Source: Business Insider