If anyone really Microsoft watches, most of us have been asking, “What is the deal” and wondering if Microsoft has any relevance left in the world. While Vista is selling well, and MS Office is selling well, if you take a look at the recent press releases, and Microsoft’s foray into hardware with the Zune, and earlier Xbox, Xbox 360, keyboards and mouse’s, maybe we are seeing a different trend here.

The launch of the new Microsoft computer and “Surface Computing” shows another trend that is underlying what Microsoft has been doing lately. If you watch the video over at MSNBC, they are saying that they are making the system on in-house developed hardware, and limiting the SDK’s to fewer rather than many to get it started. With a 3 to 5 year time lead to get the device into people’s homes as the price drops.

It is these longer-term game plans combining innovative hardware and software that is fundamentally different in how Microsoft is going about business and the trend is hard to see. While the Microsoft branded keyboards and mice have been around for a very long time. The first real successful foray into a hardware software ecosystem came with the Xbox, and continued with the Xbox 360. Zune while based on a standard MP3 player, has innovative features, and a software and content ecology to support them. Bringing surface computing into the fold, and addressing it as a Kiosk system first, will help establish the system in the market, and with a 3 to 5 year lead-time to get it into people’s houses will allow time for the market to mature and other people to make software that will work on the system without rushing them.

While everyone loves to question why Microsoft does stuff, we think that we are seeing a trend in Microsoft to not only support a software ecology, but bankroll the hardware that those software ecologies are going to rely on in the future. It is difficult to get device manufacturers to innovate on new stuff, with Microsoft bankrolling the entire ecology, and prove the system in total in the market place will help device manufacturers in the future.

If Microsoft goes from a portion of the ecology, IE Software, into working with the entire system, from device manufacture to software as well as enlisting the aide of 3rd party manufacturers and software designers. Microsoft may be setting itself up for more market share and more innovation by being the idea and proof of concept through initial delivery system of systems that we will bring into our homes.

The Microsoft as full system designer in the future, holding both the hardware and software channels makes for a very interesting market idea. While only time will tell if what we think we are seeing is true, the idea of Microsoft as a full system hardware and software maker brings out some interesting ideas.