Gold said Microsoft would not ultimately be able to compete with Amazon on price since costs would be higher for an RT machine and there is no clear pathway for Microsoft to recoup subsidies it might pay to attract consumers.

"If Microsoft wants to offer their own branded device, something competitive to Fire makes much more sense to me than a general purpose tablet," he added.

The idea that Microsoft has actually manufactured a tablet was dismissed by analysts who suggested that such a device would be built by a contract manufacturer. "Buying manufacturing capability would be exceedingly foolish," Enderle said.

Gold said there's also a possibility that Microsoft will be showing off a reference platform to show what the Windows RT machine could do. That would be the design that other manufacturers would implement, and those companies include Asus, Lenovo, Acer and others.

He said Microsoft would not want to compete with its own vendor ecosystem. "That makes about as much sense as Microsoft building PCs to compete with HP, Dell, and others," he said.