Serious question: At what point does Microsoft give up on the OS business and focus on the areas where they still have cachet: Office/Exchange?
Probably never. Even with all the whining and predictions of doom they still own the OS market. And that ownership gives them leverage in the Office/ Back Office market. It’s important to keep in mind these predictions of doom have been around a long time, industry analysts insisted the XP adoption rate was glacier and showed MS had lost its cachet, and most of the OSes they’ve shipped since have had similar adoption rates.
” Serious question: At what point does Microsoft give up on the OS business...”
Serious answer: when enough hardware OEMs decide they are sick enough of complaints to go with an alternative.
As long as hardware OEMs continue to load MS OSs, Windows will be around, no matter how bad it sucks.