So clearly Ballmer had this in the cards for a long time. The various iterations of Zune, even though commercially unsuccessful, laid the groundwork for both the "Metro" UI language and Microsoft's in-house hardware design.
Maybe Zune was a necessary "weaning period" in reducing Microsoft's OEM dependency.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/microsoft-launches-the-zu...
So clearly Ballmer had this in the cards for a long time. The various iterations of Zune, even though commercially unsuccessful, laid the groundwork for both the "Metro" UI language and Microsoft's in-house hardware design.
Maybe Zune was a necessary "weaning period" in reducing Microsoft's OEM dependency.