Microsoft has been watching

"Microsoft released the preview version of a software toolkit for
building robot applications today, pledging to ignite the robot market
in the same way it did the PC market some 20 years ago."

"The software maker sees robotics as being on the verge of a rapid
take-off, fuelled by the availability of cheap, high-performance
hardware components. But the market is being held back by a need for
better tools and a common software platform that will let applications
be reused on different types of robots, according to Microsoft."

How about them apples.

Dennis