What if Microsoft bought HP's PC business?

What the mainframe and PC markets in the past have shown us: When the market is new, and innovation is happening fast, vertical integration rakes in the cash. When the market matures and begins to compete on cost, commodity operating systems will take the majority market share.

So, if you want to make a buck now in the tablet market, making your own hardware is the way to go. If you want to be one of the big players ten years down the line, licensing your software to hardware manufacturers is the way to go.

Guess which goal is more important to Microsoft?

Microsoft has always been a software company. I doubt this happening - Microsoft doesn't need Webos and they are interested in Nokia more; they are closely working with Nokia.