MS has lost its edge, hasn't been much of a threat to anyone for years now.
Windows 7 is good. For a PC operating system done by MS, that is. Consumers with $$ buy Macs. Apple owns the premium end, MS having been relegated to bargain-bin status. Also-rans attempt to be more "Apple-like" as the saying goes. Not more 'Windows-like" or "Microsoft-like." LOL I've never hard anyone use those last two phrases. Apple is selling more Macs than ever, in the presence of lower-cost Windows-based options. Something just doesn't seem right about that, especially when Windows 7 was supposed to claw back the Premium end from Apple. Instead, Apple's expanded it with record Mac sales. Again.
Microsoft Office is tolerated for the same reason Windows is. You buy Office because of interoperability with . . . other copies of Office. It isn't particularly great. And it isn't particularly great that MS is relying so heavily on the old Windows + Office paradigm. Especially when MS is becoming a dying, unexciting, unimaginative consumer brand. Time to move *away* from Windows and Office as flagship products. They're cash cows that just encourage laziness, as we're all witnessing.
We're witnessing the Rise of Apple. This decade belongs to them and to players other than Microsoft. The real competition will be between Apple and someone else. This will remain truth until the current management team at MS leaves or is terminated. There needs to be a COMPLETE reorganization at MS a-la Apple upon SJ's return in 1997. It doesn't make sense for MS to be underperforming to the degree they are with a company their size and their R&D budget. Something is very, very wrong in Redmond. The real question is . . . do consumers care anymore?
