My view: Valve is retreating from building the Steambox in-house.

Gamasutra mentions that the layouts might have affected the Android and Hardware divisions the most. The Valve Employee Handbook states that the ideal employee is t-shaped, which, I assume, might not fit the profile of someone hired to do Steambox engineering and prototyping.

Exciting times. I really didn't expect Valve to do something like this. Will be following developments closely.