[caf]

It seems to me that Microsoft is in a perfect position to promulgate such a standard - they don't care if the hardware is commoditized (in fact they would welcome it). It also appears that "will run Windows 8" should be a sufficient carrot to convince manufacturers to build to the spec.

As you say, Google is in a similar position, so perhaps a Microsoft/Google jointly supported standard makes a certain amount of sense, as odd as that sounds...