Can a Microsoft-built tablet jump-start Windows 8?

Microsoft is rumored to be building its own Windows 8 tablets, to be announced this coming Monday. Will that be enough to jump start the company's mobile Windows 8 strategy?

The Wrap reports that on Monday Microsoft will announce that it's building its own Windows 8 tablet. AllThingsD confirms that its sources have also heard in the last several weeks that Microsoft will build its own tablets.

If true, it's not clear whether the tablets will be Intel-based and so run pure Windows 8, or ARM-based, and so run the closely related operating system Windows RT.

Scoff if you will at Microsoft-branded hardware, but the company has often done quite well with it. The Xbox 360 and Kinect are two good examples. On the other hand, it's also had some failures, notably the Zune digital music player.

Microsoft-built tablets would help Microsoft in one very significant way in the tablet wars: Microsoft could sell them at a lower price than Windows 8 tablets made by other companies. Reports say that Microsoft will be charging manufacturers between $90 and $100 for every Windows 8 RT license. That fee structure will make it difficult for manufacturers to compete on price against the iPad and lower-cost Android tablets. Microsoft, though, will get by with much lower margins. It would do that because profit from mobile devices won't just be from hardware -- it will be from advertising delivered to Microsoft services on the devices, such as Bing and mapping.

Whether lower-cost Microsoft-branded Windows 8 tablets will help the company gain much traction against the iPad and low-cost Android tablets isn't clear. But?if it's true that Microsoft will build them,?it's certainly a good first step, .

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