I'd call that a different opinion, it doesn't prove the first report wrong. If anything, the article you reference seems to show that MS wants to tighten down the hardware:

"[MS] wants five chip makers to pair with a single tablet manufacturer. The chip makers include Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, which would eventually be allowed to expand beyond that single partner."

That's like a skunkworks or government military project - give the same job to X different teams, the best one gets the contract, the rest get nada. It would be easy to ensure that "eventually" never happens, so MS ends up with a single piece of tablet hardware.

The first report is just another way MS could achieve the same thing.

>That report has pretty much been said to be wrong. http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/comment/why-microsoft-wont-make-a-branded-tablet-31342
>
>>But they keep trying: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2386588,00.asp