While does make hardware -- mice, keyboards, Xbox, Kinect, Zune, Surface and other products -- it has not yet made desktop PCs, laptops or , opting instead to embrace a partner strategy of third-party OEM manufacturing.

Pundits will no doubt say that Microsoft has a case of envy and suggest that the company is finally embracing the highly successful "Apple model," in which the operating system maker also makes its own hardware.

In fact, Microsoft's announcement will be more in line with the " model."

The Google model is to have it both ways -- making hardware, but also licensing your OS to hardware partners who make products of their own. Google partners with OEMs for smartphone handset and tablet hardware. But it also , which makes Android hardware.

The Motorola acquisition isn't Google's first foray into hardware sales and direct competition with hardware vendors. Google launched its Nexus One smartphone handset in early 2010. Although that phone was technically manufactured by one of Google's partners, HTC, it was sold by Google and branded as a Google phone. As it turned out, Google didn't like the support part of the hardware business and decided to exit that line of work for a while, but it had let its partners know that it was willing to compete with them.