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Here's my take. Microsoft got to where they are (or more precisely were) but taking a very fragmented PC market in the 80s and 90s and made it orderly which was a clear benefit for consumers but at the cost of a Microsoft monopoly. Before Microsoft came along there was no promise that a given program would work with a given printer or a given modem or what have you. Once the Microsoft monopoly was established they continued to print money by ruthlessly exploiting that monopoly.

What they haven't done much of in last, say, 15 years, is to significantly innovate.

Now, faced with an entirely separate market - the one for Mobile OS - they have none of their previous advantages. Say what you will, it's not a market in chaos either economically or technologically. And it's certainly not a Microsoft owned monopoly - far from it. So neither of their previous two strategies show any promise of working in this new space.

Can they come up with a winning strategy by providing a compelling technology for carriers, manufacturers, developers and users - and then forge those relationships based on a compelling technology with great customer service and innovative marketing? It's possible, but seems quite unlikely to this observer.

And one more thing - people who want to work some place “cool” aren’t going to be working at Redmond and neither are people who are looking for a quick “pop” on
stock options or restricted stock grants. The programming talent that they have there
now is probably no longer the best and the brightest nor on the cutting edge of mobile
technology.

Insightful, and in my honest opinion; a fair and accurate assessment. I hadn’t considered that back in the 70-80’s timeframe; there were those bundles of brand ‘X’ PC and printers. There was no assurance that your particular model of printer would work with any particular model of PC.

Windows did ‘unify’ the printers, modems, mice and monitors.

And, for the past 15-20 years; that origional ‘inertia’ has worked well to their advantage.