Ballmer Tells the BBC There's More MS Hardware On the Way 133
Microsoft has made hardware for quite a while, but not much of it as visible as the Surface; now, it looks like there's more where that came from. Dupple writes: "Steve Ballmer told the BBC: 'Is it fair to say we're going to do more hardware? Obviously we are... Where we see important opportunities to set a new standard, yeah we'll dive in.' The chief executive's comments came ahead of a Windows 8 launch event in New York, following which Microsoft's Surface tablet will go on sale. News other devices are likely to follow may worry some of the firm's partners. Mr Ballmer caused a stir when he revealed in June that his company was making its own family of tablet computers — one offering extended battery-life powered by an Arm-based chip, the other using Intel's technology to offer a deeper Windows experience."
We've come full circle in 30 years (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft was just a vendor of some software utilities. "Everyone knew" all the real money was for IBM, manufacturing the hardware.
Re:Microsoft Hardware (by logitech) (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
The XBox was a loss-leader to sell games. It had to be cheap. The new tablet isn't cheap.
I think Microsoft has a weird advantage here. They're "competing" with their customers. If they create a flagship device to set the bar high, it keeps the market from becoming a race to the bottom.
All sales profit Microsoft, so it doesn't matter if *their* hardware doesn't get deep marketshare, as long as the combined market is large. Currently, the race to the bottom hasn't done well for PCs, creating shovelware minefields and overall bad user experiences.
That said, I'm sure Ballmer will find a way to screw up. He always does.