14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft may very well design, manufacture and ship a complete computer system firstly in the U.S and then worldwide. A first variant is already being tested in India, yet it did not attract too much attention from the consecrated computer manufacturers. Over the years, a couple of people (all right, lots of people) have accused Microsoft of just copying Apple's graphical user interfaces and ideas. If this is the case, we may soon expect to find an 100 percent Microsoft branded computer hitting the hardware market.
Apart from the Zune project, where Microsoft plays follow the Apple leader and his iPods, the Redmond based company has always been pretty original when it comes to its hardware products, as it is the case with the Xbox, pen-based computing initiatives and peripheral manufacturing. Because of the antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft, the company can no longer force computer systems distributors to ship only Windows-based systems. Already, Dell and some others are shipping PCs that come with a distribution or another of the free and open source operating systems known as Linux.
The main problem Microsoft faces in its endeavor to build and ship an entire computer system is that traditional Microsoft hardware compliant manufacturers might not like being competed against. Already Microsoft has a firm and important share in the hardware market for computer mice and keyboards and combining that with the Xbox project and the Indian computer test, it will soon have all the skills and data needed to make a move on the big hardware. While Microsoft's own hardware products never owned their respective market segment, they were and are of good quality and cool looking, as the company knows only too well that nice looking products have a better chance to sell and become popular than plain gear. During several tech conferences and trade shows, Microsoft has shown a number of very cool looking and interesting PCs that were designed and produced under their own brand.
If the "Microsoft is expanding its hardware market" hypothesis is true it could also explain the recent departure from the Xbox project of chief Peter Moore. It may very well turn out that Xbox is only a fraction of the company's business and expansion strategy.
