During last night’s keynote, Microsoft executives unveiled Surface, a set of new 10.6" tablets built by the company itself — not a hardware OEM.
Alan Kay famously said:
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.
It seems like Microsoft may finally be getting the message.
Here are some quotes from Ballmer’s keynote:
We believe that any intersection between human and machine can be made better when hardware and software are considered together.
This combination of hardware and software works together to deliver an amazing experience.
We see that combination working in our PC ecosystem. We believe in the strength of that ecosystem. Of software and hardware partners working together. Those are essential to the re-imagining of Windows.
Of course, since the main venue Microsoft uses to gets it software in to the world is hardware partners, Ballmer had to backtrack a little bit:
The ultimate landing point is through our partnerships.
Interesting, right?
Windows RT
A shift can be seen in Windows as well, With RT, Microsoft is leaving the legacy desktop behind, except as a thin shell in which to run Office. If Office was fully ready for Metro, I think that the Desktop would be 100 percent gone. (Of course, as both are built by the same company, I do have to raise an eyebrow at my own theory.) The company isn’t letting third-party developers get to anything except metro on the ARM-based RT platform.