And I had the same reaction: "Gartner said *what*?"

I completely understand why Microsoft is doing this. They've lost the mobile war. Tech markets typically have a leader, a strong second place, and then a bunch of boutique niche companies and fading losers. The reason for this is network effects, and there's only room in even a large market for 2 networks.

Microsoft's only chance to get back into mobile is to leverage its Windows network, and Surface is the bridge. MS hopes that people will make lots of applications for Metro and Surface, and that this will spill into WinPhone. I say "spill into" because 75% of mobile developers have said they aren't going to touch WinPhone; they've got their hands full with iOS and Android and over 90% of the mobile market already. WinPhone is irrelevant to developers, and without developers it will remain irrelevant. Hence the tie into Windows 8.

Unfortunately for MS its bread and butter enterprise clients are going to frakking hate Windows 8, not to mention they're still migrating to Win7 at this point.