it isn't about the desktop !!!
"Doing that general purpose operating system is a nightmare, and you lose your shirt on it," Smith explains. "At the end of the day, you have to do something that puts rice in the bowl", Jordan Smith Xandros
It isn't about the desktop, it never was, it was always about getting control of the customer experience. The battle for the desktop was fought and won, by Microsoft, a long time ago. MS, always late to the party, recognizes this, which is why it is moving to services based round the xbox and 'the cloud'. They realize that if you don't control the total stack, from the desktop to the server, then you're just the delivery people. Which is why Apple making money out of the iTunes on Windows is total anathema at Redmond. How dare Apple make a buck out of the Microsoft Desktop without paying the MS tax.
Digital Video Recorders, set-top boxes, subscription services and 'other tiny computing devices' will sell, but the real money is in subscription services. As long as the consumers are using your devices, else you're just the delivery people.