September 10, 2008, 10:53 AM — There has been some buzz lately about Microsoft getting into the PC hardware business. There have been no announcements, although the Microsoft muckety-mucks have raised the possibility as part of a theoretical discussion. Although I don't expect to see any Microsoft-labeled PCs any time soon, it is an interesting proposition.
When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the company was "changing the way we work with hardware vendors", it did fuel some speculation, although he certainly didn't mean that Microsoft was going to make their own PCs--rather, that they would work more closely with the third parties who do. A closer relationship is a good strategy, and Microsoft would do well to issue some guidelines to hardware providers to make sure that the resulting notebooks and desktops are powerful enough to run Windows the way it should be run. Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich also discussed the issue on TechNet Edge, saying that Microsoft has gotten very successful because of the large ecosystem of third parties that are developing both hardware and software. Obviously, Microsoft would be shooting itself in the foot if it were to try to move to a narrow, Apple-like business model. Microsoft is what it is today because it sells software and leaves the hardware to others.
