Why I disagree when people say Microsoft is no longer leading the way

This is a minor point, but rumors of IBM's demise are greatly exaggerated. Last I checked it had a market cap of more than $160B.

One could argue that IBM's PC business is what died, but I'd say Dell did more to kill that than Microsoft (my guess is MS doesn't care whose hardware they run on.) The other companies the author described, Xerox and Bell Labs and Apple, only one is still kicking around in the consumer technology space, and it almost died along the way too.

The "MS is managed into the toilet" comments seem like the other side of the "Apple is destroying openness/hobbies" or "Google kills privacy" memes. I read it as people wishing a particular company was different, more like how the authors want them to be... open, friendly, innovative and awesome. Like a digital Santa Claus. Fact is, all of these companies are successful, with weaknesses and strengths. I'd like a more level-headed comparison of those, personally, rather than nostalgia.

All of these companies are shifting, like IBM did. Google is really going after mobile, MS is really going after businesses (with a side quest into the living room), and Apple is doing it all. It's just interesting to see who's big bets will pay off.

Microsoft research is very good though not all of it makes it into production. I would certainly call them a leader in research compared to other companies. http://research.microsoft.com/apps/dp/areas.aspx

Perception is interesting here. I have worked with startups in Silicon Valley since 1984 and remember the ever-increasing dismay throughout the period extending right up to the early-to-mid-90s of the "UNIX guys" (that is how I saw them) as they were almost ready to explode watching Microsoft apparently taking over first the consumer desktop and then the enterprise with what they saw as crappy products relative to the far more robust systems they worked with and developed. All they could do was shake their heads in dismay and bemoan the fact that consumers and enterprise customers could be so forced to conform to the lowest common denominator that DOS/Windows and their progeny begat - all the while complaining of Bill Gates's "evil empire."

I mention this only to emphasize, for those who are younger, how all-pervasive this dispirited mindset was back then. Of course, this all changed with the Internet and the rest is history.

I think this piece reflects that mindset perfectly: Microsoft sucks? Of course, it always has!

I don't even know that this is fair characterization of what Microsoft did or did not achieve back in the day (I am not a techie guy) but I do know that it was how Microsoft was overwhelmingly perceived by many of the tech-savvy people even as it was crushing all competitors.

I think "IBM's demise" is refering to when they were the in place monopolist, and ruling the computer field completely. Which was way before Dell selling PCs

I think Microsoft tosses too much research money around in the hope of finding something rather than focusing more on what matters.

I don't know why they can't innovate like other companies with all those projects and all that money they spend in R&D. Maybe it's because of all that internal competition outlined in the Dick Brass' "creative destruction" piece. This could be one explanation, but I think it's not the only one.

It was not long ago that MS investors complained that Apple invests one tenth of what Microsoft invests in research, obtaining far better results.