* Phone customers will become tablet customers, so the same consumer needs will drive both markets.* Phone OSs will, to a large extent, become tablet OSs, which has already happened with the major tablets.* Phone apps will become tablet apps, which is the single-largest factor for success of a particular tablet or other mobile-computing/information device.

So whoever succeeds with phones will almost certainly also succeed with tablets, possibly in an even bigger way. Along those lines, guess who answered this question:

———————————————————————–Q: People get passionate when Apple comes out with something new — the iPhone; of course, the iPod. Is that something that you’d want them to feel about Microsoft?

A: It’s sort of a funny question. Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody.

Now we’ll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.———————————————————————–

Probably not too hard to figure out –  it was Steve Ballmer.(USA Today, Interview with David Lieberman, “CEO Forum: Microsoft’s Ballmer having a ‘great time’”)