Software giant Microsoft said Wednesday it has teamed with dominant Chinese computer maker Legend Group to make tablet PCs, laptops with write-on screens expected to make a splash in Asia. "They are the No. 1 PC manufacturer over here and so it's great that they've chosen to develop the tablet PC," said Oliver Roll, marketing general manager for Microsoft Asia. Legend Group, the parent of Hong Kong-listed Legend Holdings, would be the only mainland Chinese firm to offer the portable computers on the formal worldwide launch date of Nov. 7, he said. Roll gave no further details of Legend's involvement.

Taiwan's Acer, Hewlett-Packard and Fujitsu are among the other firms working with Microsoft on the portable computers with touch-sensitive flat screens that can be written on like a pad of paper and come with or without a keyboard. They are expected to be popular in east Asia, where character-based languages such as Chinese and Japanese are awkward to type on traditional keyboards, said Olivier Richard, a Microsoft spokesman based in Hong Kong.