Apple is into Hardware and Software, Oracle is now into Hardware. Some exec at MSFT has seen how good a user experience you can give if you control the entire cycle from hardware to software.
If they entered the Hardware market directly, they compromise Windows - for example companies would distribute Linux with their machines more openly and they could lose the "XXX recommends WinX". So they could do this indirectly by owning Dell privately and pulling the puppet strings.
Secondly if you want to run a massively parallel search engine like bing - you need a lot of hardware. They would probably seat a specialised hardware team at Dell and take the machines at cost.
If they entered the Hardware market directly, they compromise Windows - for example companies would distribute Linux with their machines more openly and they could lose the "XXX recommends WinX". So they could do this indirectly by owning Dell privately and pulling the puppet strings.
Secondly if you want to run a massively parallel search engine like bing - you need a lot of hardware. They would probably seat a specialised hardware team at Dell and take the machines at cost.