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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.
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There was an article in Wired a couple of years ago about this: they use a "manufacturing contractor" (not sure if that's the right term). MS does the design, they take the plans to Flextronics in Mexico, who recommends small changes (use a different-size screw here, etc.), quotes a per-unit manufacturing price, and then builds and packages the gear.
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Microsoft designed their own keyboards. I know this for a fact. My wife worked on the beta team for the original Natural keyboard. They had many prototypes that they tried out before they released that keyboard.
This isn't a mouse or a "natural keyboard" we're talking about here. This is stuff which requires actual drivers. Complicated drivers.
Keep something in mind: when Microsoft released its previous generation of hardware (mice, keyboards, joysticks, etc.) they weren't thinking about Linux at the time. They felt confident that they owned the PC space. Nowadays, even though they still have the monopoly more or less intact, they do know that Linux is looking to break into that space, and has a better than fair chance of doing so.
Microsoft needs to de-commoditize the PC platform.
The best way to de-commoditize the PC platform is to turn it into the Windows PC Platform. Palladium is a big part of this, to be sure. Whatcha wanna bet that these new Win-Fi(tm) devices are going to tie into the Palladium infrastructure for security? And of course their chipsets will be full of Innovative Microsoft Patented Technology. Try to write a Linux driver... get smacked by the DMCA.
Over the last year or two, some of the WinModem chipset makers have started to warm up to Linux -- by releasing specs or by writing actual drivers. You can be sure that if Microsoft is the chipset maker, the binary-only, Windows-only drivers will come directly out of Redmond.
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That they don't manufacture keyboard and mouses is a given, almost nobody manufactures retail goods. Therefore, I'll assume you were trying to say in your second point that MS isn't the designer of the keyboard and mouse they sell.
/. don't believe much about MS, your loss) so let's do a such on google with "intellimouse hardware design". One of the first links to pop up is
t io ns_2001/hardware.asp
/., maybe you believe they're make believe individuals MS created to steal the credit from some small startup company that came up with the idea for that mouse. Then again, you might want to schedule an appointment with your psychatrist.
If that was, hopefully, your point then I do hope that ignorance is bliss to you. Most of the hardware is designed in house by a bunch of people whose job it is to "design hardware"...
wow...
you learn something new every day, don't you?
Now you might not believe me (a lot of people on
http://www.cesweb.org/awards/innovations/innova
scroll down to the intellimouse description. You even have the name of the people who designed the mouse... wow...
I'll let you track down whether they still work or ever worked for MS. After all, this is
P.S.: doesn't take much effort to use google before stating falsehoods.