With their new tight partnership, Microsoft and Nokia can produce hardware and software synergy that others can't. In fact, I completely expect Microsoft to use Nokia to produce hardware designed so well for Windows, that they are used as a reference design that other hardware vendors should follow.
What I'd really like to see is Microsoft (not Intel, like they tried to do several times, but failed miserably) to build reference PC designs in all-in-one, notebook, desktop, and tablet form factors that system builders could buy whitebox units for, and customize with certain options, but also be able to brand with their own company name. The big problem is that systems that system builders design and create are not pre-certifed for Windows as a complete box. All of the off-the-shelf components are, but when you build a system it's a different end-product so Microsoft requires the complete system to be separately WHQL-certified to carry the Windows logo. I think there should be "gold-certified" components that can be combined with other components of the same certification level that will create a fully-certified Windows logo PC without any additional compatibility testing. There also needs to be more shells for system form factors that typically don't lend themselves well to componentized systems, like tablets and all-in-ones. Intel started up a "Thin Mini ITX" specification for motherboards for insertion into several new all-in-one PC desktop shells, but they won't license the form factor to AMD (or VIA). Intel did the same thing with their VBI notebook shells, and continued with Spring Peak. Microsoft needs to better wrangle hardware vendors.
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