>Maybe Microsoft is coming back from the dead the same way Apple did? No, because Microsoft was never "dead" the same way Apple was. Apple was unprofitable an

>Maybe Microsoft is coming back from the dead the same way Apple did? No, because Microsoft was never "dead" the same way Apple was. Apple was unprofitable and on the brink of bankruptcy. Microsoft had new competition, but was still making more money than Apple or Google during its "slump". Apple recovered by appealing to the general public instead of a niche market. Remember what owning a Mac was like in the 90s? Microsoft is "recovering" by appealing to a niche market segment that they've spent most of their corporate history alienating: the open source hacker crowd, ie, people who read this site. PG only thought MS was dead because, like Sauron in the Third Age, its shadow no longer darkened the world he saw. That doesn't mean that Sauron/MS's power was broken, just that it wasn't affecting the Hobbits/hackers in the Shire/Silicon Valley. Now Sauron is back and he wants to come smoke pipeweed and eat second breakfast, and everyone is very aware of how healthy and dapper he is these days.