By the end of this decade Microsoft is going to become the next Yahoo.
Their biggest asset all these years was being the default OS on the majority of PCs sold in the USA and around most of the world.
As other free options catchup and become much, much more robust this decade (and already most portable non-x86 devices ship without the need for ANYTHING from Microsoft) they become irrelevant. Lawsuits and patent royalties will be all they have left by 2020.
Honestly, reading it the reason for the downvotes seem obvious. And unlike most people who ask "why the downvotes?" in this case they seem justified.
Your original post was almost completely unrelated to the story at hand. It would be more appropriate in the original Google blog post thread, but even there not really appropriate. It's more fitting a story about the future of Microsoft.
I think the downvotes were meant to say, "you're off topic". Post about how MS's response wasn't credible or legit or whatever. But talking about their OS position over the past 2 decades is really kind of left field.
Ah okay, thanks for explaining - I didn't get it because instead of the details I was thinking about the overall picture of Microsoft's relevancy - everyone seems interested in this "battle" but I feel the whole point is moot because Microsoft is no longer the "world power" they once were - this strikes me as "last grasps" of power.
(and this comes from someone who has been around before windows and www, and used Microsoft products almost exclusively back then, including compilers)
Their biggest asset all these years was being the default OS on the majority of PCs sold in the USA and around most of the world.
As other free options catchup and become much, much more robust this decade (and already most portable non-x86 devices ship without the need for ANYTHING from Microsoft) they become irrelevant. Lawsuits and patent royalties will be all they have left by 2020.