Actually, it makes quite a bit of sense to release them roughly at the same time, or the OS a little ahead of the associated HW. You don't want to release a HW with the old OS only to have a new OS out a few weeks later. They can also be used to showcase each others strengths.Releasing these simultaneously would be very bad IMO. Hardware is NOT OS dependent more the other way but tying them together is completely arbitrary and not the best of strategies for the marketplace. oh yeah, not the MS strong suit, especially lately.