Tablet Computing to Take Off?

About Tablet Computing Old and New:

"If developers learn about what was done in the past, they can move ahead and produce better solutions to the problems we were addressing, and discover new areas to be covered. Software development is a continuous process of building on what came before, and then testing with real use. By Microsoft starting with an advanced ink application of the last generation, they've set the bar high enough to give people a boost. If they really leave things open for outside development (from both a technical and business viewpoint), and continue innovating themselves, new ideas can be tested and evaluated by the market. The fact that we now have good hardware with lots of marketing behind it means there will be at least some market for new software."

The main point of the article is that through marketing and iterative development tablet computing will eventually get many times better. The emphasis being on tablet computing, the handwriting and those aspects of usability seems to be further away. To me it seemed the hardware had changed but the usability had not. Has Microsoft created a really innovative platform for tablet computing like they did for the web?