Easy in, Easy Out?

Acer founder Stan Shih says Microsoft has “no real intention” to enter the hardware market, despite the big Surface intro earlier this week. From DigiTimes:

Microsoft has no reason to sell hardware because such sales bring much less profit than licensing its software products, according to Shih. In addition, Microsoft will face many difficulties marketing tablet PCs on its own, including production management, distribution, and after-sales maintenance service, Shih indicated.

Those are serious hurdles, but offending your OEMs (which Ballmer did on Monday) is a pretty serious hurdle, too.