Unfortunately your analysis is spot-on. For me Microsoft still has more to offer than Apple. I use tablet PCs for most of my computing and rely heavily on web-based applications and storage. Believe it or not, the Apple “cloud” sucks. For a company that relies so heavily on the user experience they’re woefully behind in certain areas, but then again they don’t really care. Much like Microsoft, Apple refuses to change their ways, and right now it makes little difference because they’re wearing the big boy pants at the moment.

Once someone comes out with a better convertible tablet I’m there. Whether it’s Apple, Microsoft, Android, Linux, or some up-and-comer makes no difference to me. I just want what I want.

Once someone comes out with an Office buster, MSFT will be out of business.

Jerry they are exactly like IBM in the mid 1980s. They were the first to market for a major paradigm shift in society (use of personal computers) and they capitalized on it heavily. They innovated around that business and end user model for a few decades.

Then something new came along (mobile computing) and threatened their livelihood. The choices they have are to continue down the self destructive path as a stagnant company that makes a household product for awhile longer, or come up with something truly innovative to society.

What they need to do is fire Steve Ballmer and get a CEO that is excellent at change management to revolutionize their infrastructure and business model.

Windows 7 is a great OS. However, it has nothing that Apple didn’t have in OS X 8 years ago. Stale. The only thing they have is the user base. They are slowly loosing it to innovators in the market.