Until the past year, or thereabouts, Microsoft, no matter how far afield the operating systems and office divisions went, the Microsoft hardware was amazing, and solid.

Microsoft mice and keyboards have always been well made, durable both in looks and operation. Now, within the last year, the mice designs coming from Redmond are looking less robust, and the physical aspects, like switches, are much less able to deal with the knocks and bumps of ordinary household use. I have written here before about the problems that I’ve had with the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000, and how they were becoming easily ‘weathered and worn’ with only moderate use. The right button of one of these mice stopped working, for no apparent reason, and no indication of damage on the outside. Apparently others were having lots of problems with these mice as well, because the warranty went from one year to 90 days, and the next thing that happened is the announcement of a revision 2. As a point to show how things have changed, the original Microsoft Mice I still own have a lifetime warranty.

Well, that’s old news, but I mentioned it only to get everyone up to speed. I have since seen several other models of Microsoft mice introduced, and then, within a very short time, disappear from the marketplace. If these devices are not having great success, it would be reasonable to assume that the less-than-exciting units would be available at outlet prices somewhere. Such is not the case. The units are gone, with only small mentions of their release available on Google.

Today, while looking around on CNN, I happened to see a Microsoft web cam, the VX-3000, panned in a review. This is about the third one of these web cam reviews that I’ve seen where the hardware is given a passing grade, but the drivers are given a big fail.

What has happened? Is the hardware division on autopilot? Is it time to sell the division to Yahoo?

-

Technorati Tags: Microsoft - hardware - webcams - mice - keyboards - QC