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If the CEO lacks a moral compass and is prepared to do anything, screw over friends, colleges and business rivals then that would promote the interests of the company. Unfortunately in the process he'll do immeasurable damage to the rest of the industry. Take the case of Bill Gates, or the rail-and-oil robber barons from a previous century.

Microsoft Sues Samsung

Microsoft Litigation

http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-ww-monthly-201206-201306 A quick look at market share put Google at 90%...with Bing at less than 4% at least in the search arena. So about 22 times larger.

In areas such as online email outlook.com has 420 million (18 February 2013) vs Gmail 425 million (June 2012) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook.com and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail ...which I would kindly call a draw.

For their Choosing a Cloud-Based Office Systems http://rcpmag.com/articles/2013/04/23/google-apps-vs-microsoft-office.aspx "In terms of user numbers, Google Apps had about 10 percent of the cloud-office market in 2007, 20 percent in 2009, and between 33 percent and 50 percent in 2012, according to Gartner's analysis." Which again I am going to kindly call it draw.

That is without looking at the servers for Google+; YouTube; Play and Maps where Microsoft does not have a product, or at All those Microsoft servers that deal with activation and updates...and a whole host mysterious information.

The bottom line though is that 4X market share is not right for anything.

Why not continue this story with further 'count down' stories?

ANYTHING to push another MS related post to the FP. Every day/week. We can't live here at /. without MS stories!

Has there been a new Microsoft related post today?

Of course!

Let's all celebrate proprietary monopolies!

Let's replace the Microsoft logo, which used to be a Borg logo, with a friendly Care Bear with the Windows logo on his chest! Let's market these toys so we all have Microsoft Care Bears on us all of the time - with bluetooth! When we rub his belly a beam shoots across the room to the latest Slashdot story about another Microsoft news or not news happening!

Dell and HP should sell out to MS: Why not own the OEMs?

Finally:

Spanish Linux users launch legal challenge to Microsoftâ(TM)s secure boot

@ http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/31499/spanish-linux-users-launch-legal-challenge-to-microsofts-secure-boot/
@@ http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/24199/rsa-2012-malware-gets-the-boot-in-windows-8-notes-charney
@@ http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/26/us-microsoft-eu-idUSBRE92P0E120130326
@@ http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Secure-Boot-complaint-filed-against-Microsoft-1830714.html
@@ http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference=E-2013-000162&language=EN
@@ http://www.hispalinux.es/node/758
@@@ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/51329950/ns/business-us_business/t/exclusive-open-software-group-files-complaint-eu-against-microsoft/
@@@ http://newyork.newsday.com/business/technology/microsoft-target-of-hispalinux-open-source-software-users-in-complaint-to-eu-1.4909950
@@@ http://www.mobilenapps.com/articles/8058/20130327/linux-users-file-complaint-against-microsoft-over-secure-boot-windows.htm
@@@ http://rcpmag.com/articles/2013/04/01/spanish-complaint-windows-8-secure-boot.aspx
@@@ http://www.eitb.com/en/news/technology/detail/1297786/hispalinux-microsoft--hispalinux-files-complaint-microsoft/

Lock yourself in, boys! (At the BIOS level) We're in for a heck of a ride!

Mark me troll because you know it's true and you enjoy lying to yourself.

"LOOKS LIKE MEAT IS BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS!"

The logo for MS should be a plate of Soylent Green and a rainbow behind it.

Did the recent switch this month to a first-to-file country affect you negatively? Positively? What sort of impact do you foresee that having on your business model? Was it right to move that way?

There is institutional inertia in Microsoft that demands product executives still "act as if" Microsoft were still the 800lb gorilla of technology, master of all they survey: an emperor so dominant that they demand their visitors be trained as supplicants wary of offending the Beast before they dare even approach.

Once upon a time this is what they were. 2x above the nearest technology competitor and master of all that is invented and all that is prevented, deciding quarter by quarter which of their partners live and die based on which is most helpful to them. The bodies of their foes are immense and numerous: Sun, Novell, Borland are but a few. The bodies of their allies fallen from favor are even far more numerous. Technology companies, particularly startups, did kneel before the king. Microsoft leveraged their various properties to defeat every foe by being deliberately incompatible with the challengers and innovators of the day a few at a time.

Today though Microsoft do not stand above the biggest company in tech by 2x. The biggest tech company is Apple which stands above them by 2x now. The second biggest is Google - a company Microsoft's CEO swore to kill when it was but a gnat, but somehow he failed and Google now is well ahead of them. Yesterday they were not even third biggest tech company. The IBM they thought they killed in the early '90s has in its quiet conservative way been creeping up on them and finished ahead in market cap again yesterday - soon a position to be made durable. Samsung is working on it too and may someday claim a solid fourth, relegating Microsoft to the fifth position in tech until Cisco spoils even that. Even Microsoft's mighty partners - the ecosystem that drove out innovation they did not control by proxy - is weakened beyond repair. It is just not profitable to make Windows client PCs. It hasn't been for a long time and they know it but are dependent on the revenue flow to maintain their size, clinging to that as they lose profitability permanently. Innovators are coming now not a few at a time to be vanquished and fed to the beast one by one, but in a flood that may drown the beast. They come bigger also now, so big the beast cannot wrap its jaws around them. The loss of the power to drive innovation isn't the most important thing for Microsoft. The loss of the power to prevent innovation they don't control is. That is what is killing them: Chromebooks that last all day, Nexus 10 tablets with insane resolution, iPads and iPhones and Android phones more powerful than a recent laptop that delight and amaze. And this is nothing compared to the fact that they're going into battle wielding their sword holding the wrong end.

For Microsoft to survive the transition to mobile they have to reorient to being a scrappy startup striving for a place in a hostile world, not approach it as if they were entitled to appear and claim it as an entitlement of their dominion, swaying all with their massive billions. They don't have it in them to do that. They literally can't do it. The very concept is so alien that they cannot grasp the need for it. Anyone there who proposed such a thing would be walked to the door by security immediately. That is the problem they face: their inability to assess the situation and respond appropriately. From here the end is clear.

All empires fall in the end. Usually for this very reason: the inability to see their own mortality.

For many years Microsoft was the 800lb gorilla of technology, a titan among small fry, not just the largest technology company but such a king that could hold sway over all of the market. That gave us such gems as this: "Minding your Microsoft Manners." The palpable hubris is, in hindsight, the problem. Pride goeth before a fall.

When Apple knocked them off of the top of the market cap, revenue and profits hills many of them do doubt were telling themselves it was a fluke, a fad, a bubble. But now not only is Apple worth well over twice what Microsoft is, but Google has knocked them out of the second spot. Google! The company that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer swore he was going to kill in that legendary chair throwing incident eight years ago has grown over three times in size while Microsoft stood still and has bested him. As if that weren't enough, IBM has been in its customary patient, persistent, conservative way building itself up until it is ready to put Microsoft even out of the third row in "Technology Companies by Market Capitalization". This on the eve of the largest simultaneous refresh of Microsoft's products in its history: new versions of Windows, Server, Office, Mobile, gaming products, the expected success of which the market has already priced in.

This is no longer the giant that others dread.

Microsoft's fall from dominance goes really hard. They are still in denial, demanding things they are no longer entitled to. It affects their partners too. Their longtime partner HP remains loyal despite the fact that Windows PCs make them no profit to speak of, and aren't expected to in the next few years, and HP has been scrambling so fast for so long that literally every other option has been floated but still the company stock is trading at lows not seen in a decade and analysts are calling for a breakup of the company, or doom inescapable. What could make HP act this way when there is no profit in it, nor hope of any? Dell is just as bad off - in the midst of the 2008 panic their stock fell lower than today, but there's no panic today and their shares today traded at an annual low, and the company's market cap is about one third of where it was a decade ago. And then there's Nokia. We all know what's happened to Nokia in the last few years. The only Microsoft partners doing well these days are ones like Samsung, Asus and Acer who keep them at arm's length and are participating in the mobile revolution Microsoft somehow missed.

The world has changed. We don't need to mind our "Microsoft Manners" any more. That is the really, really big deal.

It's about offering due respect and approaching the Redmond giant with the proper posture. Here is an article from Redmond Channel Insider on minding your Microsoft manners that will be instructive in the proper approach.

You will find that when treated in this civilized way they will treat you about as well as can be expected. Be sure and mention Vista. A LOT. They love that.

Here's one to make you spew all the way. http://rcpmag.com/articles/2007/07/01/minding-your-microsoft-manners.aspx

look at how many android devices we have. All of them run linux. Yet you don't hear about it being calculated in global OS marketshare all the time, yet they're there. Counted separately as "mobile OS".

Microsoft is hurting from this, bigtime. Seeing Execs drop like flies is an enormous sign of looming problems.

If people stop adding a device to the "Year of linux" thing, they'd realize that from probably 2008-now has easily been "years of explosive linux growth across the board".

Dig into the CV of the author and you'll find at least a little M$ contamination. It's like with a sheep dog. Once they go bad, there's but only one thing that can be done...

Or maybe its because people are just telling them what they want to hear

Slashdot's rumors of Microsoft's impending demise have (once again) been greatly exaggerated...

Sorry, I thought it would be obvious: Imagine, Microsoft somehow figured out that the author behind the highly critical blog "minimsft" is Martin Taylor. That is another major HR violation besides "child porn on his computer" and "physical violence".

I know, it is really far fetched.

BTW: Here is another really well-written article about Martin Taylor.

Founder Technology President Qi Dongfeng said the company would buy $250 million worth of licenses for a Chinese version of Windows over the next three years, to be used on computers sold in China. The two companies also agreed to work together to promote the use of genuine versions of Windows.

The agreement, which company officials signed at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters, follows high-level talks Tuesday between U.S. and Chinese officials in which China pledged to crack down on piracy and require computers to use legal software. Piracy is thought to be extremely widespread in China, hampering Microsoft's efforts to make money in the vast and growing market.

The signing ceremony also comes ahead of a visit next week by Chinese President Hu Jintao, who will visit Microsoft headquarters and dine at the home of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.