"I can't imagine Microsoft would tick off Asus and others an more than by directly competingwith them on hardware while also charging them a license fee for software every time they sell a device," Gold added.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at , or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Topic Center.