Ars Technica is quoting Microsoft’s Robbie Bach today, suggesting that Google’s move to make its own branded phone while still distributing Android to partners is a mistake. I couldn’t agree more. And who would know this better than Microsoft, the company that screwed its Plays for Sure partners with the Zune and suffered greatly for it? As I’ve said many times, Google is following a strategy that clearly failed for Microsoft. And now even Microsoft is agreeing with me. In other news, [snow is predicted in…

If you didn’t know that Microsoft was finished as a consumer company before last night, watching Steve Ballmer’s Keynote at CES would convince you. Not that this pitiful display of ineptitude was anything new. Microsoft has been “faking it” for years now at CES, responding to whatever Apple announced at Macworld a week earlier with a concept of some future product that never really ships. (Remember the Surface? Know anyone who’s bought one?) The big difference this year, of course, is that Macworld didn’t come in…