> Microsoft’s huge profits — $6.7 billion for the past quarter — come almost entirely from Windows and Office programs first developed decades ago. Like G.M. with its trucks and S.U.V.’s, Microsoft can’t count on these venerable products to sustain it forever. Perhaps worst of all, Microsoft is no longer considered the cool or cutting-edge place to work. There has been a steady exit of its best and brightest.
via [nytimes.com](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html?pagewanted=all)
Still don’t believe me when I say that Microsoft is no longer relevant as anything other than a provider of boring office software solutions? Read this NY Times piece from a former VP at Microsoft.
While it’s eye-opening to read about leaders of different departments purposely sabotaging each other’s projects for personal reasons, I can’t say I’m all that surprised. Ballmer doesn’t strike me as the kind of CEO who puts the hammer down on these sorts of things.
At Apple, on the other hand, it’s impossible to even picture a head of one department refusing to support the efforts of a major new initiative like iPad. Steve would have him or her escorted off campus before lunch.
