*sigh, doesn't it ever occur to anyone that a company that still makes billions in a deep recession, has the largest market cap of any IT company, has a share o

*sigh, doesn't it ever occur to anyone that a company that still makes billions in a deep recession, has the largest market cap of any IT company, has a share of over 90% in its main revenue markets, was until recently led by the richest man in the world, and only hires the world's brightest people, might not be stupid? If a company wants to stay alive it needs to diversify and enter new markets. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Microsoft doesn't try to create new markets. Its core competency has never been innovation, it has always been outmuscling the competition in growth markets. Many of the diversifications have been a success, with Internet Explorer being the flagship. Netscape showed the Web was going to be big, Microsoft entered the browser market to make it so. Internet Explorer was for a large part the catalyst that put a Windows computer (with Office) into every home in the late 90's. The same thing happened when RealPlayer showed streaming video was going to be big. Microsoft decided to give its WMP product a boost and made it so. The multimedia possibilities further catalyzed sales of Windows PCs and Media Centers in particular. At this point IE and WMP are no longer important since there are plenty of widely available alternatives that other people are developing freely for Microsoft. It is shifting its attention to other areas that could further fuel its software line. Azureus will establish a firm presence of Windows in the Cloud, while acting as a catalyst for new features in their corporate products like Office and Exchange. Visual Studio, .NET, DirectX, etc. have all been major catalysts for the development of the largest software legacy in history, which means Windows will be in business for at least another 30 years. Finally, Microsoft has entered a number of markets in which the only "failure" is that it didn't become market leader. Otherwise, many of these products are a success (Bing, Xbox 360, Zune, Game development, MSN). The added value in terms of diversification and building new products and expertise is also notable. The MSN/Live expertise is what allowed them to build Azureus, Bing and Office 2010. The only area in which Microsoft really failed to win its battle is handhelds. Apple outwitted them with religious marketing and some UI novelties, Nokia/Symbian always managed to keep a tight grip on the phone market, and Google decided that the mobile OS itself can be a catalyst for its web products. This is not only a missed opportunity, but may also come to threaten Microsoft's dominance in other areas. Overall. Microsoft is not evil, stupid, at the end of the road, or sliding downhill. It's the #1 IT company and very good at doing business. (No, I use Linux about 90% of the time, use Opera, VLC and Gmail on all my machines and I don't own a copy of MS Office. It's just that I learned not to ignore the business part of IT.)