Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday that developing Windows-based tablet computers and getting them to market is “job one urgency” for the US software giant.

“We have got to make things happen with Windows 7 on slates,” Ballmer told financial analysts at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, during a meeting that was streamed live on the Web.

“It is job one urgency around here, nobody’s sleeping at the switch,” he said of developing rival devices to Apple’s popular iPad.