According to Paul Thurrott, Microsoft may discard its original plans to include support for desktop applications in their tablets. Instead, they would go for Metro-only apps, like the ones found in Windows Phone 7.
I'm not surprised. If they want to make their tablets competitive with the iPad in terms of size, battery life and ease of use, you can't support memory and performance hogs like Photoshop or the desktop version of Office. It doesn't make much sense, especially when you take into account its user interface limitations in a touch environment—simply, those tiny icons and cells are too hard to hit with your finger. Bringing Metro to laptops and desktops makes sense. The contrary would never fly.
So yes, I hope the rumor is true. Perhaps they will save that to some flavor of professional tablet—with laptop-style guts and stylus support—similar to their current tablet computers instead of the ultra-thin Windows 8 slates that would compete with iPad. [ZDnet]