Comment Survival (Score 5, Insightful) 565
For Microsoft, this isn't so much as a betrayal, as it is survival. Microsoft has spend decades relying upon third-parties innovating hardware in order to sell Windows Licenses. And, especially of late, those third-parties have failed. With the mobile market taking off and those third parties having mediocre mobile hardware AT BEST, Microsoft has no choice than to make a product. Maybe, it will diminish into a mere reference design, but only if those third parties actually get to serious work.
This should be a wake up call for HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc., to "innovate or die."
Of course, if Microsoft has signed agreements saying they'd never create a competing device, it IS downright betrayal.