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Comment by freeone3000 | Hacker News Reader

Except for all the hardware they make.

It's only been a recent trend, and it's more to experiment with new form factors and nudge the PC ecosystem in right direction more than anything else.

And the recent trend is for software companies to start making their own hardware (AWS making Graviton, Echo products,and Google making TPUs, Pixel) while hardware companies move into software (Apple moving into Apple Music, TV, News).

Clearly Microsoft's focus is on software. But I think you'd be surprised how early they started producing hardware. Back in 1980 they had huge successes in hardware! Starting with the Z80 Softcard and Ramcard.

https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...

Exactly, there's not much recent about them doing hardware, but if you don't know the history and only look at the past 10 (or so) years which is in some ways understandable, then indeed it could look like e.g. the Surface line is 'MS recently doing hardware'

Let’s not forget about the Xbox

Apple has always been in software, the move you mentioned is more services

> It's only been a recent trend, and it's more to experiment with new form factors and nudge the PC ecosystem in right direction more than anything else.

> And the recent trend is for software companies to start making their own hardware (AWS making Graviton, Echo products,and Google making TPUs, Pixel) while hardware companies move into software (Apple moving into Apple Music, TV, News).

Define recent? The Xbox came out in 2001, and they were working on media players before then I believe.

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