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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.
Can you imagine the EULA Microsoft would have on a router?
I bet they would have some legaleese saying they can access you're network at anytime.
but usually Microsoft hardware isn't bad at all. I like their USB mice quite a bit, and their natural ergonomic keyboard is pretty cool. So as far as their hardware record, they've had a good reputation (IMHO).
1. Wireless networking equipment uses an encryption scheme known as WEP. If Microsoft jumps into this line of hardware, I gurantee you they will make "MS-WEP" which is virtually incompatible with standard WEP. Such was the case with CHAP and MS-CHAP. They do this because if their version of the encryption scheme becomes widely used, it will become the defacto standard and that just becomes one more element of computing that you have to pay Microsoft tax on. Granted WEP has it's problems, but come on... are you really going to trust Microsoft to get the security right?
2. I highly doubt Microsoft makes their own Mice/Keyboard hardware. So if you want to give out props to someone, give it to the real manufacturer of their products, not to Microsoft. Microsoft just sticks their name on it for marketing reasons because their name is more likely to sell then if it said "Chuwing Yokung Inc."
canned response #1: lame remark about ms (sorry, i mean M$) not making their own hardware canned response #2: lame remark about security, particularly talking about the security concerns about mice and keyboards - har dee har har canned response #3: beware!!! DANGER!!! EULA!!! big brother!!!! do you guys ever get sick of posting the same crap over and over and over again? this place if a friggen joke!