Do they have any successful Hardware besides the Xbox360? All the other devices I am aware of failed pretty hard. Their OS and software on the other hand is great, IMO they should stick to this side of the company.

Makes those comments about Microsoft leaving the xbox to Samsung even more ironic. This is the right direction for Microsoft, without ignoring what made them great in the first place.

what windows 8 proves is the hardware side isn't willing to take the risks MS wants to push as part of their agenda.  so i think MS wants to take a more leadership role there to ensure their software side doesn't suffer when hardware manufactures baulk at windows 8 and windows phone and whatever else MS comes up with.  this is about self preservation.

if they really want to push windows into more devices, they need to make devices too. It makes sense.

Save for RROD, they make quality hardware. So be interesting to see where this heads. Exciting!

I agree. It would be great if they found a new device to release, but this time without trying to one-up Apple (which is why Zune failed IMO) and software/OS that's primarily developed for the device itself (IMO why their early tablets failed, they just slapped WinXP on them without really optimizing the OS for them).

They have shown a lot of potential in the last decade, but almost all devices failed because they were either late to the party or suffered from unnecessary mistakes. I think they learned their mistakes and will suprise us in 2-3 years down the road :D

how much longer will Balmer have to run MSFT into the ground?

They had this:

Seriously thought has anyone Heard about microsoft's keyboard and mices? I mean they are one of the biggest makers of those and that is a pretty big deal.
So yeah they have had successful hardware outside of xbox

They might just be talking about something a little more complex than that.