Nokia Windows 8 tablet in the works, confirms company's design chief

Rumours of Nokia prepping a Windows 8 tablet have been around for a while, but this is the first time we are hearing from a company official. Nokia's design chief Marko Ahtisaari has confirmed that the Finnish company is 'working on' a tablet and that he is spending a third of his time on the device. Ahtisaari said this in an interview with the Finnish newspaper, Kauppalehti. Ahtisaari, however, did not divulge more details about the tablet. Considering the time spent by Ahtisaari on the new device, it looks like Nokia is hoping to make a strong debut in the tablet market.

Ahtisaari's comments on the Nokia Windows 8 tablet come days after reports suggested Nokia had well moved ahead in developing a new 10.1-inch Windows 8 tablet, which will be powered by a dual-qore Qualcomm processor and is slated to launch before this year. Speculations are rife the announcement regarding the launch of the tablet will be made at Nokia's annual Nokia World event, which is slated to be held in Helsinki this year.

As said before, rumours about the Nokia tablet have hit the Internet multiple times over the last year, even as CEO Stephon Elop, said once that the company would “hold off” until it launched something really out-of-the-box. Elop pointed out that the tablet market is interesting for the company. However, he had then not given any timeframe for the launch of Nokia's first tablet. The design exec’s full interview is not yet available online though, but an excerpt at the magazine’s site hints Nokia is also working on a significant “breakthrough” in user interface.

Microsoft recently launched the consumer preview version of Windows 8 and is supposed to launch the final version by mid 2012.