Why Microsoft is Smart to Produce its Own Tablet

The time is ripe for Microsoft to offer a tablet of its own.

This would be an about-face from the software company's longstanding policy against competing with its hardware partners. Microsoft nurtured its hardware agnostic practice while building Windows from an idea to the dominant software platform.

But today’s tech world is very different from the one Microsoft helped to shape with its birth 37 years ago. The company built its model on distributing its PC operating system, the precursor to the Windows (itself now nearly 30), to third-party computer manufacturers. Things change, though, as Apple’s runaway success in the past decade shows. And if Microsoft’s Windows operating system is to stay relevant in an increasingly integrated, mobile world, the company needs to offer its own hardware. That's the expectation for Microsoft's announcements next week.