I am a child of my times (OK not quite a child anymore, but I still think of myself as a kid, don't you?). In my time there were only two evil empires, the USSR and Microsoft. I lived to see one of those empires crumble from within, but I never thought I would see both fall. I came into tech at the tail end of the Big Blue - IBM dynasty. For the most part there has been only one dominant champion in tech who has rolled over all competitors.  That is not to say I think of Microsoft as evil.  I think they were very heavy handed and used their monopolistic position to their greatest advantage, however they have also brought many positives to the IT world over their years.

So it is with a certain amount of shock and disbelief that I read reports of Microsoft losing their grip or Microsoft Live being a miserable failure and not able to "save" Microsoft.  Please people, give me a break.  Talk about crying with two loaves of bread under each arm! Microsoft is not going anywhere.  Yes Google makes a lot of money with search and ad revenue.  Yes, Microsoft does not have a search product to compete and trying to buy Yahoo is a lame effort of taking two also rans and putting them together to take on the leader.  But there is much more to the machine that is Microsoft than search.  Also it remains to be seen if SaaS office type applications will every overtake PC based office suites.  Microsoft's play of combining SaaS with functionality from their suite being on the box offers many advantages to pure SaaS.  But look at the chart to the left, that kind of revenue does not disappear. 

It is natural to root for the underdog and we have been so used Microsoft being unbeatable, that Google appearing as the "great white hope is also natural.  But are we know going to cast Microsoft as the underdog here?  Have their fortunes sunk so low that we think they are lost?  I think not.  A company with the assets of Microsoft will continue to make their presence felt.  Just as the US could not remain forever as the only super power and has to play in an increasingly global community, Microsoft will play in a global community of software providers.  But they will still be a giant among men for a long time to come!