Two major rumors in the last week have me thinking about ecosystem viability and what it means for tablet PCs in the next year or two. The first rumor was a potential game changer as a video surfaced (via CrackBerry) of a Playbook demo in which an RIM representative can be overheard saying the PlayBook will support Android Apps. It’s not the first rumor of this sort, but it’s the first one to come directly from RIM (even unconfirmed).

The other rumor is that Microsoft’s newest operating system – Windows 8 – won’t be ready for tablet integration until the second half of 2012. With recent rumors pinning the development of Windows 8 around build 3 and a beta likely to be released this summer, the timing seems about right (though possibly a bit earlier in 2012 than some people think). That’s a long time to wait to get into a market that is starting to boom as we speak.

Both rumors (and the reaction of writers to them) point to one thing – the market can only support so many development ecosystems. It’s not so much about the people who buy these devices. If the Apps and hardware are there, people will buy any number of different operating systems.

That’s not the problem. The problem is that when there are too many options, developers tend to shift resources to those platforms that are the most profitable – in this case iOS and Android. RIM seems to be at least contemplating that as they don’t deny rumors of Android support on the Playbook. And while this is a great way to drive sales, it will probably further deflate the Playbook development community. Why would a developer produce two apps – one for Android and one for Playbook – when they could just as easily create only an Android app?

On the other side of the coin, Microsoft is still playing catch up, and unfortunately they are doing it slowly. It’s sad to see a company that was so much at the front end of tablet PC development fall so far behind the curve. By the time they release their first tablet specific OS, if Windows 8 is tablet specific, the iPad will have been on the market for two full years with a third generation device just having launched (if it follows Apple’s normal development cycle).

Android will have had a full year to propagate on new tablets and there will be at least two other major players on the market in the Playbook and HP’s WebOS. If Windows 8 was released right now, it would be a little late to the party. By 2012, the party might be moved somewhere else entirely.

This is a new age of ecosystem sales. People don’t just buy devices – they buy the experience those devices offer. And the more people buy into the iOS and Android experiences, the less likely any of them will shift to a new model, especially developers who make so much money with the current offerings.

Of course, things can change. We don’t know what Windows 8 for tablets will look like. Deep integration with a desktop, advanced handwriting support, a centralized app store, actual ARM support for longer battery life – these are all features that could help Microsoft’s new offering succeed. But, will it be too little too late? That remains to be seen.

Right now a lot of people are waiting anxiously for the 2011 edition of the big Consumer Electronics Show. In recent years, the show has been pared down a bit by the exclusivity of many announcements made by companies at their own events. However, this year with the boon of the tablet market in 2010 and so many companies hoping to get off to a strong start in 2011, I’m expecting quite the laundry list of interesting news out of the US in a couple weeks.

I’ve already mentioned the potential announcements that Microsoft has up its sleeve. No one is entirely sure if Ballmer will show off a revamped Windows 7 or if he has something entirely new on the docket. One thing is certain, though. After 2010’s CES, he needs to come out swinging and show off an OS that will truly compete with iOS, the upcoming Honeycomb from Android and possibly even RIM’s Playbook OS, all expected sometime  in spring/summer 2011. I love Windows, but I just don’t think it can compete with the touch-oriented operating systems that everyone else is working with right now.

But, then we have Intel’s recently released documents showing that many major manufacturers including Toshiba, Lenovo, Dell, Fujitsu, and Asus are all working on Windows tablets for release in 2011. It will be interesting to see what comes of all these new projects and how many of them we will see at CES 2011.

We’re also seeing some snippets of news leak out from a variety of companies that will likely be announcing new products at CES. A Sony device recently won FCC approval for Bluetooth and Wireless connectivity as a tablet – not much is known about the device yet, but it looks to be a hefty device both in size and specifications. We won’t know for sure until January.

Other known announcements we will see include a Motorola Honeycomb tablet (likely with 4G) recently teased at in an internal event for the company. The new device has been referred to as the Everest and Motorola is already whipping out the quips against Apple’s iPad Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and their pared down computing experiences. Will we get to see exactly what kind of horsepower the Honeycomb tablet OS actually holds or will Google continue to hold back details further into the year?

And then there is everyone else. NEC is slated to show their dual screen tablet, while Notion Ink will hopefully give everyone a chance to actually lay hands on the Adam and ensure it is in fact the real deal. And there are always surprises. If 2010 was the year of the tablet, CES 2011 looks to be the celebration with almost every major consumer electronics company in the world bringing its A-game to Las Vegas.

The other day, rumors of Microsoft addressing the growing tablet market were circulated, discussing a major announcement at the upcoming CES in January. Presumably at the Microsoft Keynote, Ballmer will showcase some of what we’ve already seen from a recent New York Times article about Samsung’s newest Windows 7 tablet. There are, of course, rumors that Ballmer may throw a curveball our way with an unveiling of Windows 8 functionality on tablets, especially with the expected Apple announcement of the iPad 2 probably coming sometime in January or early February.

With all that said, I find the news from Microsoft interesting, but not necessarily as encouraging as I would have liked. Don’t get me wrong. I love my Windows on tablets and have for many more years than most consumers were aware tablets existed. However, right now the tablet industry is growing rapidly and while hardware is a big reason, the software interfaces of iOS and Android are what make these devices so accessible to their users.

So, when details leaked that Samsung’s newest device, the Gloria, will have a touch-centric portrait interface and a traditional Windows landscape interface, I wasn’t sure what to think. The idea of convertibility in business tablets isn’t new by a long shot. The TegaV2 did it in another way, with dual-boot Android/Windows while other devices like the Inspiron Duo converts from netbook to tablet PC on the fly.

And then there is RIM which has been making hefty claims recently about how their tablet will “redefine what a tablet should do”. I can’t see them producing anything that completely revolutionizes the approach that Apple seems to have forced so many other developers to take, but while consumer tablets are starting to look very much alike, there is still a very wide open field for the business market – arguably the much harder group to placate.

And that brings me back to Microsoft, because frankly, this is a company with the largest business user install base in the world on traditional computers. But, they’ve fallen behind in all things mobile and it’s partially because of a lack of innovation. They continuously play catchup, as can be seen in their recent Windows Phone 7 launch which doesn’t seem to be doing as well as they had hoped (despite a slick interface and solid reviews). Right now, a company that pretty much had the tablet OS space to themselves for the last 8 years has been marginalized as most new tablets are sporting Android or some other non-Windows interface.

Yet, Windows 7, while decent on a tablet, is not designed for tablet use alone, and powerful software tools like Microsoft Office still cannot stand alone on a tablet without some upgrades like InkGestures or Thinix – great tools but necessary add-ons for full tablet functionality.

I don’t know what Microsoft will show to us in three weeks, but I’m hoping it’s something new and exciting. They really need to blow people away with something that allows for the kind business use that many tablet owners have been waiting for or they’re looking at yet another market that they cannot quite catchup to.