In-house dev teams at Microsoft introduced for their teams a fast track route to gadget dev for themselves inhouse. Previously the method was for custom built PCB boards etc to be made, printed, assembled and so on making new development a time intensive task. So they built GADGETEER project around a core mainboard that then can be easily interfaced with other devices such as touch screens, wifi, input peripherals, use SD cards as solid state memory and RAM and so on, remarkably accelearting their ability to develop gadgets faster, more efficiently, and above all else, CHEAPLY.

Well now, MS have released Gadeteer to the public as an open source electronics engineering platform.

GET IT HERE