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Microsoft To Make Wireless Networking Hardware
traskjd writes "Microsoft are looking to increase their strength in the hardware market with wireless and conventional networking hardware according to this story on cnet. Microsoft has always been slow at moving into the hardware market... could they be testing the waters for making things like switches and routers in the future? Lets hope not..." There's also a Reuters article. There was a story last year that mentioned Microsoft was working on Win-WiFi - 802.11b hardware that exported some of the processing to the CPU in much the same manner as a winmodem, and thus was cheaper to produce. These stories don't mention anything about that, so probably these are conventional 802.11b devices.
re. 1: Logitech currently has a proprietary version of WEP that is 128 bit, because there is no current standard for highly secure WEP. I am sure Microsoft will follow suit with their own proprietary exclusive WEP, although for different reasons.
re. 2: Microsoft probably has an exclusive manufacturing deal with a provider such that the only way to get a Microsoft type mouse is through Microsoft. Outsourcing like this is done for many thing; IBM manufacturers PowerPC chips, yet they are called Motorola. It is still a Motorola PC, because Motorola owns the schematics. The exclusivity deal of Microsoft's no doubt is functionally and legally equivalent to Motorola's IBM fab deal. This allows Microsoft and Motorola to choose different manufacturers for "their" products.