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Could it be that the Microsoft Business is starting to fall apart?

Consider:

1. The iPad eats the consumer PC market.

Apple sold 14 million iPads last quarter, which is more than the top PC maker, Lenovo which shipped 13.7 million PCs. Throw in Apple’s 4.9 million Macs, and it’s the top computer maker by a mile.

As the personal computer market goes ...

2. Employees gradually switch away from using Windows PCs for work.

This trend has not played out that dramatically in 2012. However, British bank Barclays bought 8,500 iPads at employees insistence this year.

And, a recent survey showed that the iPhone has overtaken RIM as the smartphone of choice for enterprises

3. Windows 8 fails to stop the iPad.

It’s still early, but every single data point says Windows 8 is not going to make a dent in the iPad.

4. Loyal developers start to leave the Microsoft platform.

Not sure if this happening or not. So far, the early signs are actually positive for Microsoft. It has over 20,000 apps in its Windows app store. Windows 8 is only a month old. At the same time, Microsoft doesn’t have a Facebook app for the Surface, and one of the biggest complaints from reviewers was the lack of good apps for Windows 8.

The .NET development platform seems to have a huge loyal following individually and at the corporate level.

5. Windows Phone gets no traction despite the Nokia deal and RIM’s collapse.

This has happened. Despite everything Microsoft has tried in mobile for the last two years, consumers aren’t buying it.

6. Could Microsoft Office lose its relevance?

7. Microsoft’s other business applications start to erode.

If Windows continues to fade, and if Office starts to fade, then corporations have less reason to adopt Microsoft technologies on the back end like Exchange Server for email, SharePoint Server for collaboration, Lync for videoconferencing and real-time communication, and Dynamics for CRM and accounting.

8. Could the platform business collapses?

For the last decade, Microsoft’s fastest growing business segment has been Server & Tools, which did $7.4 billion in sales last year.

A lot of these sales come because Microsoft business apps — Exchange, SharePoint, and Dynamics — require these products. But as companies stop buying these apps, they will have less reason to buy the Microsoft platform products that run them, and the System Center ($1 billion+) products used to manage them.