Ashlee Vance from BusinessWeek about Microsoft’s announcement:

Yet, I’m not sure how committed Microsoft is to this hardware-making thing over the long haul. It showed this technology off months before the arrival of Windows 8, has yet to release pricing details, and says it will deliver these beautiful products only through Microsoft channels. This does not sound like a full-on break with the PC makers. Rather, it sounds like Microsoft giving them a wake-up call: You can make something different and sexy with a bit of effort, guys. “We took the time and effort to get Surface and Windows 8 right,” Ballmer said. Now it’s the rest of the industry’s turn. That is, if they still want to have an industry in a few years.