Tablets such as the Apple iPad won't kill off the PC, according to Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.
Earlier this week, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said people will move away from standard PCs in favour of devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Speaking at the All Things Digital conference, Ballmer disagreed. "I think people are going to be using PCs in greater and greater numbers in the years to come. I think PCs will start to shift in form factor," he said.
"The real question is what's a PC? The truth of the matter is... nothing that people do on PCs today will get less relevant tomorrow," he added. "The PC as we know it will continue to morph form factor."
Asked if the iPad is actually a PC, Ballmer said: "Sure, Of course it is."
"It's a different form factor of a PC," he said.
"It wouldn't surprise me to see competition try to eliminate the role of what they've had that hasn't been popular, in order to popularise the thing that's new and fashionable," he said. "That's a legitimate approach."
Despite Microsoft previously failing to find success with tablets, Ballmer confirmed there will eventually be such a device running Windows.
"You'll have a range of devices, there will be different looks," he said. "Some people will want the comfort of Windows as you know - some people might want it to be more customised."
Threat from Google?
While Ballmer said Google was a "real" competitor in the mobile market, he was less positive about the Chrome operating system.
"On the phone, they're a real competitor," he said. "On larger screen devices? Who knows. I don't know if these Android-based things will matter."
Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, suggested Android might give way to Chrome. "On the Android versus Chrome, the architecture of what's going on with an iPhone, iPad or Android, is a bet on the past from an application standpoint, Chrome is a bet on the future," he said. "When you centralise where Chrome is going... it's a bet on a cloud-centric future."
Ballmer also noted that Microsoft's Silverlight doesn't run on mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone, suggesting the rival firm would block it as it has Adobe Flash.
"It certainly doesn't run on the iPhone. My guess is if it did it would be blocked," he said. "That's just my guess."
