Right. The report just seems a bit off. A day after the acquisition, an unnamed source goes to Techcrunch before anyone else? Even if the source does exist, no guarantees they're not lying, deliberately misinforming, or misinformed themselves. (I wouldn't be surprised if HP was trying to light a bit of a fire under Microsoft, or really just gauge potential market reaction à la $999 iPad.)

I'm also somewhat peeved by the title of this submission of HN; no "Rumour:", no "Source:", no "Techcrunch:", just a statement of fact.

I haven't seen any non-TC confirmation of this story yet.

edit: saw a Business Insider piece which basically said "they might do it". No attribution.