Well, as the guy behind Bing for Schools, let me suggest an alternate world. Let's pretend Microsoft simply blinked out of existence. Can you name any software package as well integrated, as powerful, and as empowering for students as Office? You said that putting Office in the hands of students can't possibly be beneficial to anyone but Microsoft. But that's EXACTLY what I'm writing about. Let's pretend it was free and you took off the Microsoft brand; Office absolutely creates huge efficiencies in the ability of students to create, to learn, and to share. But because it has MSFT on it, you seem to be suggesting that it must necessarily be bad for kids.

Most of the world, and even the people in the US aren't using desktop computers daily... using any tool that ties them mostly to a desktop platform, or an also-ran mobile platform is not doing them any favors.

IMHO, if the Office division were actually able to run as a separated business unit from the whims of Windows, they would be MUCH better off.

I think that as office suites go, MS Office is absolutely the best of breed. However, there isn't much of anything that it offers that gives an elementary student an advantage over a pre-configured linux convertible tablet with Libre Office.

I like windows.. it's a consistent platform that isn't subject to an incredibly fragmented desktop/application space. IMHO IIS is an incredibly good web server. VS is a great IDE, with a wonderful level of integration for devops environments.

That said, I don't feel that Windows has much of a life left in it, and that 10 years from now, it will be relegated to the same role that Solaris or AIX workstations were in the early-mid 90's, a developer platform for server deployments. There's money to be made there in the long run, sure... but if MS really wants to succeed, it needs to allow the windows core os to develop apart from the desktop, server and mobile spaces.. and for the VS and Office teams to operate apart from that. It would also do well to let competitive products rise from within. Both in terms of support, as well as vision.

Go to skydrive.live.com, create an Office document, edit it. Note that the experience is significantly better than any other online office suite. Do the moonwalk.

I don't think anyone is arguing that if Microsoft blinked out of existence, no one would be inconvenienced. What a lot of people ARE saying is that "if not Microsoft, someone else."

If Microsoft never bought the software that eventually turned out to be Office, someone else would have provided a solution. If Microsoft hadn't bought (and resold) QDOS, someone else would have provided an operating system for IBM, and people who make chairs wouldn't have seen a big difference today.

Not only that, they kind of have to.. you can't legally track users under the age or (12 or 13 I forget which), so that means if they're aware the users are under age, they have to not track them.

I like a lot of the technology and software that has come out of MS.. VS is a pretty damned great IDE, and there's a lot to like. ASP.Net MVC is one of the nicer frameworks I've used, the Razor view engine in particular... That said, I stopped going to their developer presentations a couple of years ago, because every one seemed like an advertisement for Azure.

I like that Azure is there, as an option.. I also like that there's Joyent, Amazon, Linode and a dozen others. Options are great... But I'm tired of seeing it shoved down everyone that develops on an MS platform.

I've spent roughly half my development time for over two years developing towards node.js ... I find a much lower level of friction, that it lends itself better to modularization and can support multiple concurrent versions of libraries without having them all in the same bin directory. Not to mention imho better testing ability, and just a smoother cycle with less prescription in the core.

Ironically enough, I still think that Outlook + Exchange is the best tool combination out of MS compared to their competitors, and even that is much more open today than ever before. I don't think most people NEED MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. Especially with web tools for powerpoint and excel that are as good as their desktop counterparts. And Libre Office Writer in many ways besting Word... I don't see much value there.

If MS would really separate some of their business units, it could work so much better...

If Windows developed as a Core OS framework, with UI developers for desktop, xbox, and mobile separated, we wouldn't have to deal with Metro on the desktop, where it's imho a poor fit, but could have it in mobile where it makes more sense.

If the Office team were untangled and better able to target iOS and Android, a better job with OSX, and less tethered, they could be a powerhouse. Separate Outlook and push them back with the Exchange team.. or hell as a separate product. They could do what BlackBerry should have done and create a best of breed cross-platform mail app.

They've been so tethered to trying to integrate their marginal sales into windows + office that they've been strangled against competition that many of their departments should have been able to take advantage of.

In doing the above, their Visual Studio team could embrace other platforms better. Web Matrix is one of the best tools out there for NodeJS development, and most of the features haven't gotten into VS.

MS developed azure as a great platform to deploy too, but keeping a lot of their concepts tied to windows + vs, has restricted growth they could have had. Azure would have been better off without the heavy MS & Windows tie ins... they could have embraced other OSes earlier on, and perhaps been seen more favorably with them. Their PaaS levels could have even supported distributed/shared LXC deployments, and much better tooling.

Historically, MS has made most of their money with Windows and Office from business customers, and will continue to do so.

However, if they don't let their individual business units actually integrate, inter-operate and compete with third parties on a whole new level, I don't think that they'll find the niches that Oracle and IBM have found in the long run.

They'll be here for a long while regardless, but they won't have the same exposure to every person with a computer as the trend continues.