I don't see this happening for a number of reasons already mentioned, but one that nobody is talking about is that Microsoft has long lost its cachet as the pla

I don't see this happening for a number of reasons already mentioned, but one that nobody is talking about is that Microsoft has long lost its cachet as the place for new college grads. I graduated from CMU 10 years ago and almost 20% of the graduating CS majors went to Microsoft. People were excited to go work on things like the .NET CLR, Avalon/WPF, and big bets on web services in unexplored spaces. I'm no longer at Microsoft and I'm interviewing a ton of people from top schools for internships and full-time positions. I ask every one of them where else they are looking and the list is always Google, Facebook, Amazon, and occassionally Apple. Anyone who wants to work on an underdog project is thinking about joining a startup, where they see they see the opportunity to innovate/disrupt without beurocracy and the potential to actually reap the financial benefits of success. Without the talent, I don't see Microsoft owning the next decade.