Microsoft Windows 8
Microsoft Windows 8 will be released in October 2012. REUTERS

Finnish mobile manufacturer Nokia, in a joint venture with Microsoft, will release a 10-inch Windows 8 tablet powered by a Qualcomm dual-core processor, in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a report by DigiTimes. The information, the report claims, is from a source at the component supplier.

The source also revealed that Nokia is expected to look to sign an agreement with Compel Electronics for the production of 10-inch tablets. There are expected to be around 200,000 units in the first batch. Moreover Nokia's WoA (Windows on RAM) camp is likely to give Microsoft additional strength in order to compete with Google's Android and Apple's iOS. Nokia's plan for the tablet PC is also expected to lead to competition between non-iPad tablet PC vendors.

"The tablet is an interesting market for someone like Nokia because it is not cannibalising handset sales, it is cannibalising PC sales. If we are going to be in that market we need to have a different point of view, because being the 101st maker isn't really a commercial or consumer proposition," Niklas Savander, executive vice-president at Nokia has been quoted as saying in a report by Pocket-lint, when he was at the Mobile World Congress 2012.