Microsoft and partners this week gave a preview of new hardware that will take advantage of Windows Vista, due in its consumer configurations at the end of the month. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, systems with the Windows SideShow auxiliary display, ultramobile PCs (UMPCs) and home servers were trailed.

In a speech on the eve of the exhibition, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said: “We're expanding a wider variety of design points [that] let people work together in new ways.” Examples cited by Gates included a Toshiba Portege R400 tablet/notebook convertible PC with SideShow to allow users to access data and applications such as calendars, music players and photo albums via an auxiliary screen on the system’s front edge, even when the computer is closed.

SideShow’s biggest backer might be Nvidia because it uses the technology in its Preface Personal Media Display Platform, which can link to host devices via Bluetooth and is scheduled to appear in mobile system cases, remote controls or even clothing or bags. Preface, picked up with the acquisition of PortalPlayer last year, will be licensed to hardware makers and is the force behind Asus’s new W5Fe notebook that has a SideShow panel on its outer lid. Asus also plans a Skype phone that can access SideShow.

SideShow is one of the first visible design changes in notebook PC design for a few years and its open architecture is likely to attract a crowd of third-parties creating their own plug-in gadgets.

Gartner research predicts that sales of SideShow-equipped systems will be in the high tens-of-millions in the first year of shipping. However, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said he did not expect SideShow, on its own, to significantly lift notebook sales.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Dulaney said. “If they’re trying to make a notebook into a BlackBerry, forget it, but there’s probably some use for these things.”

Despite the near-universal derision it attracted on launch in 2006, Microsoft and partners are also plugging away at the UMPC mini-tablet format.

Medion has created a UMPC with slide-out keyboard and touchpad, GPS, digital TV tuner, webcam, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The Vista-based unit uses a VIA processor and Medion claims a battery life of four to five hours.

Samsung followed up 2006’s Q1 UMPC with the Q1P SSD, the first machine in the category to replace the hard drive with Flash memory. The 32GB unit is aimed at environments that require fast access to data, power-efficiency and the durability of solid-state storage. However, buyers will pay a hefty premium for the capability as the unit will be offered for about $2,000 – twice the current price of the original Q1.

Seamless Internet showed off a novel alternative. The S-Xgen runs Windows CE and has a tiny 4in screen but, in its favour, has a fold-out keyboard that could appeal to users with heavy text-input requirements.

The other major announcement hailed by Microsoft’s Gates was a new category of servers intended to connect and centrally store multiple home computers and devices. HP’s Media Smart Server will be the first product based on a platform called Windows Home Server, which incorporates tools for automating backup and moving data between storage devices for optimal performance. Systems are due in the second half of this year.

Toshiba also showed the Wireless Port Replicator, a docking station that uses UltraWideBand (UWB), a near-range high-bandwidth link for wireless transmission of video to a nearby screen.